by Dellacroce » Thu Jan 14, 2016 3:19 am
January 14, 2015 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci
Feds: Genovese Gangsters Used Bloods Gangstas In Revenge Murder-For-Hire Plot
Two mob associates with the powerful Genovese crime family came up with a new and highly unorthodox way to seek revenge against a rival family associate who dissed one of them during a barroom brouhaha. Not only did the payback plan turn into a fiasco, it was the kind of bozo operation that would make the late Vincent (Chin) Gigante and prior bosses of the once sophisticated Genovese gang go spinning in their graves.
Gang Land has learned exclusively about this ham-handed plot, and the details are not pretty:
Sources say it began when Genovese associate Salvatore (Sal) Delligatti had some cross words with another patron in a metro-area saloon. Delligatti was preparing to settle the argument with his fists when another mob associate stepped in and broke up the fight.
"He stepped in and stopped Sal from beating up another guy who was in the bar," said a knowledgeable Gang Land source about the buttinski mob associate, Joseph Bonelli. "He didn't hit Sal, but [Sal] was furious about it, said he disrespected him," the source added.
At the time of the fracas, Bonelli had already earned his own rep as a hothead. In 2004, he was marked for death by the Bonannos after he shot up the restaurant, car, and home of a family associate over a $7800 debt his son owed to the Genovese family.
Delligatti, 39, is supposed to be smarter than all this. He is allegedly under the supervision of a longtime but very low-key 73-year-old wiseguy named Robert DeBello who, in classic Genovese fashion, has managed to stay beneath the radar for years.
But instead of waiting to taste his revenge cold, Delligatti stayed hot.
According to a murder-for-hire conspiracy indictment, Delligatti and fellow Genovese associate Robert Sowulski contracted out a hit on Bonelli to a crew of Bronx street gangstas aligned with the Bloods. As payment, the duo allegedly offered to pay the Bloods $5000 to whack Bonelli, plus a 2013 Nissan Altima that belonged to Sowulski's girlfriend.
The hit team then added their own knuckleheaded moves to the plot: On successive nights they drove around the Whitestone section of Queens in the Nissan in failed efforts to get the job done, according to court papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
Fortunately for Bonelli, there were too many witnesses on a busy Saturday night on June 7, 2014 as the gangstas pulled up and spotted him around the corner from his home. The 34-year-old would-be victim was also lucky the next day, according to court filings.
Nassau County detectives working an unrelated mob gambling case had picked up a few conversations involving Delligatti, and were by then very suspicious that violence was afoot. They pulled the car over a few blocks from the targeted gangster's home, and arrested the occupants on weapons and other charges, including failing to signal before making a right turn. On the rear seat of the murder car, cops found a cell phone that Delligatti had called to speak to the driver, according to the filings.
Various charges proceeded slowly through Queens Supreme Court until three months ago. That's when FBI agents arrested Delligatti, Sowulski, and the three Bloods, and federal prosecutors unsealed their two count murder-for-hire conspiracy indictment against the five defendants.
Assistant U.S. attorneys Samson Enzer and James McDonald asserted in court papers that Delligatti was the extremely offended gangster who had put the murder plot in motion. Sowulski is also "on record" with DeBello, according to the prosecutors.
Two days after detectives stopped the murder car, DeBello was seen "yelling" at Sowulski in what prosecutors "believe (was) in reference to this foiled murder plot and the arrests that came from it," McDonald told Judge Laura Taylor Swain at his bail hearing.
The three Bloods members charged with conspiring with the mob associates are Tyrone (Ty) McCullum, 37, Sharif (QB) Brown, 31, and Marcus Grant, 26. All were passengers in the hit car when it was stopped on June 8, 2014. All are from the Bronx, and all have prior arrests and convictions in New York and at least one other state — New Jersey, Virginia, or Pennsylvania.
Grant, who had a loaded 38 caliber revolver with hollow point bullets in his waist band, was charged with weapons possession and copped a plea deal to those charges. He was serving a 2-to-4 year state prison sentence when the federal indictment was filed. No state charges were filed against McCullum or Brown back in 2014.
Since their federal indictment, all five defendants have been detained as dangers to the community by Judge Swain.
Last month, in a dramatic hour-long plea for bail, Delligatti's lawyer came to court with color photos and surveillance videos of his client leaving and entering his Bayside, Queens home and his car parked across the street. He accused FBI agents of giving "false information" to prosecutors that they were unable to find Delligatti or his car "for over a week" last year.
Attorney Jeremy Schneider said he didn't know whether the agents "intentionally lied" or were "lazy" and "just didn't do their job," but the surveillance video of Delligatti's home showed "he was home every single day and every single night" during the time that agents stated they were unable to find him or his car.
In addition, Schneider argued, the PreTrial Services agency, and a U.S. Magistrate Judge had recommended bail for his client, who had been out on bail on state attempted murder charges for the same crime since 2014, and was neither a danger to the community or a threat to flee.
Judge Swain was unmoved, however, ruling that Delligatti was a danger to the community.
At his initial bail hearing, prosecutor Enzer said the government had substantial evidence that Delligatti "was a leading member" of the murder plot, based on tape recordings, surveillance photos, and information from a co-conspirator after the original arrests by Nassau detectives.
"He reached out to a felon that he knows," said Enzer, "to get a murder crew together and kill a victim. And he participated in the planning and the orchestration."
Even the June 8, 2014 arrest of the hit team didn't curb Delligatti's appetite for Bonelli's head on a plate, the prosecutor told Swain.
Two days later, at a meeting with Sowulski and his Bloods contact, the driver of the murder car, "Delligatti said that he still wanted the murder to be carried out. It was more important now than ever," said Enzer, explaining that Bonelli "had figured out the plot and was now threatening Delligatti and another person and it was still important to him to carry this out."
The prosecutor argued that excerpts of conversations between Delligatti and the driver of the murder car that were tape recorded from June 6 to June 8 established the existence of a murder plot, as well as Delligatti's desire to get the job done quickly.
Enzer didn't say it outright, but there is no doubt that the driver of the murder car is the "felon" that Delligatti hired to whack Bonelli, and that he is the cooperating witness in the case. His name was not mentioned in court, but according to a state court arrest complaint, he is Kelvin Duke, a 58-year-old career criminal with an arrest record that goes back 40 years.
"I got some people," Duke assured Delligatti in a June 6 conversation cited by Enzer. "I might, can't move today, but I got it together. I gotta make a run. I'm in the street."
"I understand, but we're pressed for time," replied Delligatti, according to Enzer.
"I know that," replied Duke. "Once I get finished doing what I'm doing, I'm going to go back and see my people. If not and if I have to force a move then I'll use what I got, but I'd rather use people that I know. We'll talk, but I got that covered. We on base, my brother? We on base, my brother? Thank you."
At 8:21 PM on the night of June 7, Enzer told the Judge, Delligatti was spotted and photographed as he gave Duke a brown paper bag containing the gun that was seized from Grant's waistband the following night, about 25 minutes after the following taped talk:
"Do you need it or not?" asked Delligatti. "I'm gonna need that thing, yeah. I'm gonna need it," replied Duke.
During the surveillance of their meeting at a local restaurant, said Enzer, "agents saw Delligatti reach into the trunk of his Mercedes, get a brown paper bag, walk over, and hand it to (Duke.)"
The prosecutor gave a photo that "was taken during that surveillance" to Judge Swain. It was not marked as a court exhibit so Gang Land was unable to get a copy. But after looking at it, Judge Swain described it for the record: "I see an individual in red and an individual in a black shirt appearing to be Mr. Delligatti, and the individual in the red shirt has the paper bag in the hand."
Appeals Court: Preet's Deal With Sex Predator-Turned Mob Informer Stays Secret
Details of a secret deal cut eight years ago between Manhattan federal prosecutors and a 47-year-old mob associate who cooperated against wiseguys after being nabbed as a sex predator in an FBI sting operation should remain that way — secret, a federal appeals court ruled last week.
A three-member panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that exactly what happened to Charles Hughes before, during and after his arrest on August 27, 2008 at a Westchester motel when he showed with a supply of condoms for a tryst with a person he believed was "a 15-year-old girl," should remain under seal.
Some of what Hughes did is already public. We know that, instead of meeting the young girl he thought he'd been talking to on the phone and in online chats for two months, he encountered federal agents. We also know that he subsequently wore a wire for a few years, with his living expenses — more than $300,000, sources say — covered by the government.
And we know that the massive mob-tied labor racketeering case that emerged from his undercover stint largely collapsed. Charges were dismissed against 10 of the 29 mobsters and associates charged with labor racketeering, and nearly all of the 19 individuals who pleaded guilty served less than a year in prison.
We also know that Hughes pleaded guilty the following year. But the details about his guilty plea, and virtually everything else about the case, are still secret — even though the racketeering case is long over, and even though White Plains Federal Judge Kenneth Karas initially ordered U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's prosecutors to unseal the case by November 5, 2014.
A month later, however, prosecutors Brian Blais and Patrick Egan asked that the case "remain under seal for an additional 30 days." At the time, the prosecutors said that the government did "not anticipate seeking further extensions" of the unsealing date. Karas agreed to keep the case "under seal for 30 more days," until December 17, 2014.
But that's as close to disclosure as things ever got. Today, 393 days later and still counting, the case is still sealed. And the best efforts of Gang Land and some very able legal advocates to let some sunshine in and finally learn exactly what went down in one of the stranger mob cases we've covered have so far come to naught.
Gang Land appealed the sealing order a year ago. Legal briefs filed by top criminal defense attorney Richard Dolan, of Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP, cited the First Amendment as well as statutes requiring public disclosure of convicted sexual predators to protect children from them.
At that point, Bharara's prosecutors threw in the towel and opted not to oppose the motion.
But instead of moving to unseal the file, they deferred to Daniel Habib, one of the court-appointed attorneys with the Federal Defender's Office that has represented Hughes from the get-go.
Gang Land didn't know defendants charged with soliciting sex with a minor were entitled to a special say about whether their crimes should be kept secret. But in their two-page ruling last week, Judges Ralph Winter, Christopher Droney and Richard Wesley declared that Hughes was so entitled, and that all of Dolan's arguments were "without merit."
Even though all the mob-linked defendants know that Hughes was the FBI informer who tape recorded 535 conversations with them from 2009 until 2013, and his identity is a matter of public record in that case, the appeals panel says the public does not have the right to information about his arrest for soliciting sex with a minor, or the government's decision to cut him a deal.
As attorney Dolan wrote in his legal papers: "The cat is out of the bag and there is nothing left about Hughes' identity as the defendant in U.S. v John Doe to justify further sealing. Each day that the sealing remains in effect compounds the problem. As the Supreme Court has warned, openness of the judicial process is 'an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased or eccentric judge.'"
Still Smiling Vinny Gorgeous Gets Hammered Again
Bonanno wiseguy Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano is still smiling in the latest prison photo to arrive at Gang Land's desk. But the incarcerated-for-life onetime acting boss is definitely not happy about the recent notice he got from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Decided two days before Christmas, the appeals court affirmed Basciano's 2011 conviction and the life sentence he received for the 2004 murder of Bonanno associate Randolph Pizzolo. The case featured the maiden voyage of turncoat Mafia boss Joseph Massino as a cooperating witness along with the taped jailhouse talks he had with Vinny Gorgeous.
It's the third time that appeals courts have affirmed the guilty verdicts and consecutive life sentences for murder that Basiano received following three trials over the past decade.
The three judge panel said the recordings were properly admitted at his trial. Once the reels began to spin, the jury heard Basciano tell Massino that he ordered the November 1, 2004 murder of Pizzolo because he was a "dangerous kid" whose murder would be "a good wake-up call" for other wayward gangsters.
During the same taped talks in January of 2005, Basciano also detailed anger he had for Joseph Bonelli, and told Massino why he ordered Bonanno soldier Paul (Fat Paulie) Spina to whack the Genovese associate a year earlier.
"There's a kid named Joe Bonelli around the Westside that was creating fucking havoc," he said. "Shot up the restaurant. Went to the owner's house. The owner's around Paulie. Fat Paulie. Shot up the owner's house. We can't have people shooting up people's houses. I ain't tolerating that."
January 14, 2015 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci
Feds: Genovese Gangsters Used Bloods Gangstas In Revenge Murder-For-Hire Plot
Two mob associates with the powerful Genovese crime family came up with a new and highly unorthodox way to seek revenge against a rival family associate who dissed one of them during a barroom brouhaha. Not only did the payback plan turn into a fiasco, it was the kind of bozo operation that would make the late Vincent (Chin) Gigante and prior bosses of the once sophisticated Genovese gang go spinning in their graves.
Gang Land has learned exclusively about this ham-handed plot, and the details are not pretty:
Sources say it began when Genovese associate Salvatore (Sal) Delligatti had some cross words with another patron in a metro-area saloon. Delligatti was preparing to settle the argument with his fists when another mob associate stepped in and broke up the fight.
"He stepped in and stopped Sal from beating up another guy who was in the bar," said a knowledgeable Gang Land source about the buttinski mob associate, Joseph Bonelli. "He didn't hit Sal, but [Sal] was furious about it, said he disrespected him," the source added.
At the time of the fracas, Bonelli had already earned his own rep as a hothead. In 2004, he was marked for death by the Bonannos after he shot up the restaurant, car, and home of a family associate over a $7800 debt his son owed to the Genovese family.
Delligatti, 39, is supposed to be smarter than all this. He is allegedly under the supervision of a longtime but very low-key 73-year-old wiseguy named Robert DeBello who, in classic Genovese fashion, has managed to stay beneath the radar for years.
But instead of waiting to taste his revenge cold, Delligatti stayed hot.
According to a murder-for-hire conspiracy indictment, Delligatti and fellow Genovese associate Robert Sowulski contracted out a hit on Bonelli to a crew of Bronx street gangstas aligned with the Bloods. As payment, the duo allegedly offered to pay the Bloods $5000 to whack Bonelli, plus a 2013 Nissan Altima that belonged to Sowulski's girlfriend.
The hit team then added their own knuckleheaded moves to the plot: On successive nights they drove around the Whitestone section of Queens in the Nissan in failed efforts to get the job done, according to court papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
Fortunately for Bonelli, there were too many witnesses on a busy Saturday night on June 7, 2014 as the gangstas pulled up and spotted him around the corner from his home. The 34-year-old would-be victim was also lucky the next day, according to court filings.
Nassau County detectives working an unrelated mob gambling case had picked up a few conversations involving Delligatti, and were by then very suspicious that violence was afoot. They pulled the car over a few blocks from the targeted gangster's home, and arrested the occupants on weapons and other charges, including failing to signal before making a right turn. On the rear seat of the murder car, cops found a cell phone that Delligatti had called to speak to the driver, according to the filings.
Various charges proceeded slowly through Queens Supreme Court until three months ago. That's when FBI agents arrested Delligatti, Sowulski, and the three Bloods, and federal prosecutors unsealed their two count murder-for-hire conspiracy indictment against the five defendants.
Assistant U.S. attorneys Samson Enzer and James McDonald asserted in court papers that Delligatti was the extremely offended gangster who had put the murder plot in motion. Sowulski is also "on record" with DeBello, according to the prosecutors.
Two days after detectives stopped the murder car, DeBello was seen "yelling" at Sowulski in what prosecutors "believe (was) in reference to this foiled murder plot and the arrests that came from it," McDonald told Judge Laura Taylor Swain at his bail hearing.
The three Bloods members charged with conspiring with the mob associates are Tyrone (Ty) McCullum, 37, Sharif (QB) Brown, 31, and Marcus Grant, 26. All were passengers in the hit car when it was stopped on June 8, 2014. All are from the Bronx, and all have prior arrests and convictions in New York and at least one other state — New Jersey, Virginia, or Pennsylvania.
Grant, who had a loaded 38 caliber revolver with hollow point bullets in his waist band, was charged with weapons possession and copped a plea deal to those charges. He was serving a 2-to-4 year state prison sentence when the federal indictment was filed. No state charges were filed against McCullum or Brown back in 2014.
Since their federal indictment, all five defendants have been detained as dangers to the community by Judge Swain.
Last month, in a dramatic hour-long plea for bail, Delligatti's lawyer came to court with color photos and surveillance videos of his client leaving and entering his Bayside, Queens home and his car parked across the street. He accused FBI agents of giving "false information" to prosecutors that they were unable to find Delligatti or his car "for over a week" last year.
Attorney Jeremy Schneider said he didn't know whether the agents "intentionally lied" or were "lazy" and "just didn't do their job," but the surveillance video of Delligatti's home showed "he was home every single day and every single night" during the time that agents stated they were unable to find him or his car.
In addition, Schneider argued, the PreTrial Services agency, and a U.S. Magistrate Judge had recommended bail for his client, who had been out on bail on state attempted murder charges for the same crime since 2014, and was neither a danger to the community or a threat to flee.
Judge Swain was unmoved, however, ruling that Delligatti was a danger to the community.
At his initial bail hearing, prosecutor Enzer said the government had substantial evidence that Delligatti "was a leading member" of the murder plot, based on tape recordings, surveillance photos, and information from a co-conspirator after the original arrests by Nassau detectives.
"He reached out to a felon that he knows," said Enzer, "to get a murder crew together and kill a victim. And he participated in the planning and the orchestration."
Even the June 8, 2014 arrest of the hit team didn't curb Delligatti's appetite for Bonelli's head on a plate, the prosecutor told Swain.
Two days later, at a meeting with Sowulski and his Bloods contact, the driver of the murder car, "Delligatti said that he still wanted the murder to be carried out. It was more important now than ever," said Enzer, explaining that Bonelli "had figured out the plot and was now threatening Delligatti and another person and it was still important to him to carry this out."
The prosecutor argued that excerpts of conversations between Delligatti and the driver of the murder car that were tape recorded from June 6 to June 8 established the existence of a murder plot, as well as Delligatti's desire to get the job done quickly.
Enzer didn't say it outright, but there is no doubt that the driver of the murder car is the "felon" that Delligatti hired to whack Bonelli, and that he is the cooperating witness in the case. His name was not mentioned in court, but according to a state court arrest complaint, he is Kelvin Duke, a 58-year-old career criminal with an arrest record that goes back 40 years.
"I got some people," Duke assured Delligatti in a June 6 conversation cited by Enzer. "I might, can't move today, but I got it together. I gotta make a run. I'm in the street."
"I understand, but we're pressed for time," replied Delligatti, according to Enzer.
"I know that," replied Duke. "Once I get finished doing what I'm doing, I'm going to go back and see my people. If not and if I have to force a move then I'll use what I got, but I'd rather use people that I know. We'll talk, but I got that covered. We on base, my brother? We on base, my brother? Thank you."
At 8:21 PM on the night of June 7, Enzer told the Judge, Delligatti was spotted and photographed as he gave Duke a brown paper bag containing the gun that was seized from Grant's waistband the following night, about 25 minutes after the following taped talk:
"Do you need it or not?" asked Delligatti. "I'm gonna need that thing, yeah. I'm gonna need it," replied Duke.
During the surveillance of their meeting at a local restaurant, said Enzer, "agents saw Delligatti reach into the trunk of his Mercedes, get a brown paper bag, walk over, and hand it to (Duke.)"
The prosecutor gave a photo that "was taken during that surveillance" to Judge Swain. It was not marked as a court exhibit so Gang Land was unable to get a copy. But after looking at it, Judge Swain described it for the record: "I see an individual in red and an individual in a black shirt appearing to be Mr. Delligatti, and the individual in the red shirt has the paper bag in the hand."
Appeals Court: Preet's Deal With Sex Predator-Turned Mob Informer Stays Secret
Details of a secret deal cut eight years ago between Manhattan federal prosecutors and a 47-year-old mob associate who cooperated against wiseguys after being nabbed as a sex predator in an FBI sting operation should remain that way — secret, a federal appeals court ruled last week.
A three-member panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that exactly what happened to Charles Hughes before, during and after his arrest on August 27, 2008 at a Westchester motel when he showed with a supply of condoms for a tryst with a person he believed was "a 15-year-old girl," should remain under seal.
Some of what Hughes did is already public. We know that, instead of meeting the young girl he thought he'd been talking to on the phone and in online chats for two months, he encountered federal agents. We also know that he subsequently wore a wire for a few years, with his living expenses — more than $300,000, sources say — covered by the government.
And we know that the massive mob-tied labor racketeering case that emerged from his undercover stint largely collapsed. Charges were dismissed against 10 of the 29 mobsters and associates charged with labor racketeering, and nearly all of the 19 individuals who pleaded guilty served less than a year in prison.
We also know that Hughes pleaded guilty the following year. But the details about his guilty plea, and virtually everything else about the case, are still secret — even though the racketeering case is long over, and even though White Plains Federal Judge Kenneth Karas initially ordered U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's prosecutors to unseal the case by November 5, 2014.
A month later, however, prosecutors Brian Blais and Patrick Egan asked that the case "remain under seal for an additional 30 days." At the time, the prosecutors said that the government did "not anticipate seeking further extensions" of the unsealing date. Karas agreed to keep the case "under seal for 30 more days," until December 17, 2014.
But that's as close to disclosure as things ever got. Today, 393 days later and still counting, the case is still sealed. And the best efforts of Gang Land and some very able legal advocates to let some sunshine in and finally learn exactly what went down in one of the stranger mob cases we've covered have so far come to naught.
Gang Land appealed the sealing order a year ago. Legal briefs filed by top criminal defense attorney Richard Dolan, of Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP, cited the First Amendment as well as statutes requiring public disclosure of convicted sexual predators to protect children from them.
At that point, Bharara's prosecutors threw in the towel and opted not to oppose the motion.
But instead of moving to unseal the file, they deferred to Daniel Habib, one of the court-appointed attorneys with the Federal Defender's Office that has represented Hughes from the get-go.
Gang Land didn't know defendants charged with soliciting sex with a minor were entitled to a special say about whether their crimes should be kept secret. But in their two-page ruling last week, Judges Ralph Winter, Christopher Droney and Richard Wesley declared that Hughes was so entitled, and that all of Dolan's arguments were "without merit."
Even though all the mob-linked defendants know that Hughes was the FBI informer who tape recorded 535 conversations with them from 2009 until 2013, and his identity is a matter of public record in that case, the appeals panel says the public does not have the right to information about his arrest for soliciting sex with a minor, or the government's decision to cut him a deal.
As attorney Dolan wrote in his legal papers: "The cat is out of the bag and there is nothing left about Hughes' identity as the defendant in U.S. v John Doe to justify further sealing. Each day that the sealing remains in effect compounds the problem. As the Supreme Court has warned, openness of the judicial process is 'an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased or eccentric judge.'"
Still Smiling Vinny Gorgeous Gets Hammered Again
Bonanno wiseguy Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano is still smiling in the latest prison photo to arrive at Gang Land's desk. But the incarcerated-for-life onetime acting boss is definitely not happy about the recent notice he got from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Decided two days before Christmas, the appeals court affirmed Basciano's 2011 conviction and the life sentence he received for the 2004 murder of Bonanno associate Randolph Pizzolo. The case featured the maiden voyage of turncoat Mafia boss Joseph Massino as a cooperating witness along with the taped jailhouse talks he had with Vinny Gorgeous.
It's the third time that appeals courts have affirmed the guilty verdicts and consecutive life sentences for murder that Basiano received following three trials over the past decade.
The three judge panel said the recordings were properly admitted at his trial. Once the reels began to spin, the jury heard Basciano tell Massino that he ordered the November 1, 2004 murder of Pizzolo because he was a "dangerous kid" whose murder would be "a good wake-up call" for other wayward gangsters.
During the same taped talks in January of 2005, Basciano also detailed anger he had for Joseph Bonelli, and told Massino why he ordered Bonanno soldier Paul (Fat Paulie) Spina to whack the Genovese associate a year earlier.
"There's a kid named Joe Bonelli around the Westside that was creating fucking havoc," he said. "Shot up the restaurant. Went to the owner's house. The owner's around Paulie. Fat Paulie. Shot up the owner's house. We can't have people shooting up people's houses. I ain't tolerating that."