THE BLACK HAND FORUM

bronx wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 8:45 pm marsala was with the arcuri's

bronx wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 8:45 pm marsala was with the arcuri's

JohnnyS wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 6:15 am Madison Medical used Vardo Construction Company which was owned by Lorenzo DeVardo who was charged in the Pizza Connection case for construction work of the Madison Medical offices. Angelo was also said to be involved in at least four real estate transactions with Lorenzo DeVardo and his wife.

JohnnyS wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 12:57 pm The company Angelo Acquista owns via a beneficiary controlled trust is called Luyster Creek, LLC.

According to the city’s doing business database, the entity has been involved in real estate-related business dealings with the municipal government since March 1, 2023. The database doesn’t make clear exactly what form that business has taken.

But property records reviewed by The News show the Luyster Creek entity owns an industrial site in Astoria, Queens that the city Department of Sanitation has for years leased space at. The agency also has plans to build a $283 million garage at the site, per capital plan records.

Angelo Acquista identified himself as a “manager” of the Luyster Creek entity in a 2017 document he signed that spelled out the details of a $20 million mortgage the company took out on the property.

A prominent Manhattan doctor who serves on the city’s Board of Health and owns a company with municipal business dealings gave a combined $10,000 to Mayor Adams’ legal defense trust with his wife last fall, the Daily News has learned.

The late November contributions from Angelo and Svetlana Acquista contrast sharply with city rules restricting who can legally give money to the trust, which Adams launched to cover lawyer fees he’s incurring from an FBI investigation into his 2021 campaign.

Under the rules, which are enforced by the Conflicts of Interest Board, individuals engaged in business with the city are prohibited from donating any money to Adams’ defense trust. The rules also bar spouses of any individuals with municipal business dealings from giving to it.

Still, Adams’ trust accepted a $5,000 donation from Angelo Acquista on Nov. 28, the maximum amount allowed by law, and another $5,000 from Svetlana Acquista the next day, according to the trust’s first public disclosure released this month.

The Acquistas’ donations rolled in even though the trust paid the Artus Group, a private detective firm, $18,664 to do “vetting and investigative services” to ensure the legality of all contributions, the disclosure revealed.

Asked about the Acquistas, Vito Pitta, counsel of Adams’ defense fund, said Monday the mayor’s team is confident their contributions were legal because Angelo Acquista owns the company that does business with the city via a so-called beneficiary controlled trust, a type of investment vehicle.

Still, Pitta said “out of an abundance of caution,” the defense trust returned Angelo Acquista’s donation on Jan. 11 — 44 days after it was made — because the mayor’s team is unsure whether he qualifies as an Adams “subordinate” given his role on the Board of Health, a post the mayor appointed him to in March 2023. Under city law, mayoral subordinates are also legally prohibited from donating to the defense trust.

Adams’ trust didn’t return the donation from Svetlana Acquista, though.

Pitta said it opted not to give her contribution back because the mayor’s team believes the doing business restriction shouldn’t apply to Angelo Acquista due to the beneficiary controlled trust ownership structure, thereby not preventing his wife from donating.

Donors to Adams’ defense trust must sign a statement affirming they’re not subordinates of the mayor or engaged in city business dealings. Pitta wouldn’t say how the Acquistas filled out those forms.

Angelo Acquista, a pulmonary doctor and diet book author who used to serve in top positions at Manhattan’s Lenox Hill Hospital, hasn’t returned requests for comment via his attorney since last week.

Conflicts of Interest Board Executive Director Carolyn Miller declined to comment on specifics related to the Acquistas’ donations, citing agency confidentiality protocols.

But asked whether a person’s barred from donating to a defense fund if they’re the beneficiary controlled trust owner of a company that does business with the city, Miller said “a legal defense trust is prohibited from accepting a donation from any person listed on the Doing Business Database” as well as such a person’s spouse without “any limitation as to why they are on there.”

Miller wouldn’t say whether Acquista’s role as a Board of Health mayoral appointee makes him an Adams subordinate.

According to Conflicts of Interest Board rules, a mayoral legal defense trust must return any donation it is not legally permitted to accept and “shall be subject to a civil penalty, which for the first offense shall be not more than $5,000, for the second offense not more than $15,000, and for the third and subsequent offenses not more than $30,000.”

The revelation about the Acquista donations comes after the news outlet Hell Gate reported last week that the wives of Jack and Joseph Cayre, top executives at the Midtown Equities real estate firm, gave $5,000 each to the mayor’s defense trust in December even though their husbands are listed in the city’s doing business database. Pitta told the outlet the trust will return those contributions “if we determine that these are in fact prohibited.”

In addition to his trust donation, Angelo Acquista gave $1,250 to Adams’ reelection campaign this past June 13.

Under separate city law, individuals with municipal business dealings are prohibited from giving a mayoral campaign more than $400. Pitta said Adams’ campaign isn’t returning any portion of Acquista’s June donation due to its belief that he should not be impacted by the doing business restriction.

A spokesman for the city Campaign Finance Board, which enforces local campaign finance law, declined to comment Monday.

The city’s doing business donation restrictions are designed to prevent “pay-to-play” in municipal government, according to the Campaign Finance Board.

The company Angelo Acquista owns via a beneficiary controlled trust is called Luyster Creek, LLC.

According to the city’s doing business database, the entity has been involved in real estate-related business dealings with the municipal government since March 1, 2023. The database doesn’t make clear exactly what form that business has taken.

But property records reviewed by The News show the Luyster Creek entity owns an industrial site in Astoria, Queens that the city Department of Sanitation has for years leased space at. The agency also has plans to build a $283 million garage at the site, per capital plan records.

Angelo Acquista identified himself as a “manager” of the Luyster Creek entity in a 2017 document he signed that spelled out the details of a $20 million mortgage the company took out on the property.

The Acquistas’ donations were part of more than $666,000 the mayor’s defense trust reported raising between its mid-November launch and Dec. 31.

The mayor established the trust after FBI agents on Nov. 2 raided the home of Brianna Suggs, his top political fundraiser, as part of a probe into whether the Turkish government funneled illegal cash into his 2021 campaign coffers. Days after the Suggs raid, agents stopped the mayor in the street and seized his electronics, including two cell phones.

Neither Adams nor anyone connected to his campaign have been formally accused of wrongdoing.

SonnyBlackstein wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 4:43 pm Zips are only from Sicily??

Since when?

CabriniGreen wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 4:32 pm Johnny's Aquista post got me thinking about the article again....I get kinda exhausted with this topic... but it still sticks in my mind.....



Palermo

Mafia, the emissaries of the US clans in Sicily looking for new business. "A pact with New York"
by Salvo Palazzolo

On the left, the emissary of the Gambino clan (ansa)
Two ambassadors from the overseas godfathers surprised by the investigations. Some credit cards are investigated
JULY 14, 2021
PUBLISHED OVER A YEAR AGO
2 MINUTES OF READING

A river of dirty money travels between New York and Palermo. Inside credit cards. "I gave it to the little ones", said a mafioso who had just landed at the Falcone and Borsellino airport on a flight from the States. At the checks he had shown only the American Express, the other cards were well hidden in the backpack of his children. "What do they have to understand", the boss laughed while he talked to his father who had come to get him. What was the money for?


The latest investigation by the Carabinieri of the Investigative team coordinated by the Palermo prosecutor's office, which yesterday led to 10 arrests in Torretta, confirms the strong link between the American and Sicilian Cosa Nostra. "The picture of a single organization emerges", says General Arturo Guarino, the provincial commander of the Arma. The investigation confirms above all that overseas bosses are looking for investment channels in Sicily. Where now they are back strong. Torretta, which is part of the district of Passo di Rigano, that of the Inzerillo , is no longer the "losers" clan. After the death of Totò Riina , the boss of the bosses, Cosa Nostra has returned to the old masters of the past.

In Palermo an emissary of American Cosa Nostra, 10 arrests. In the town of Torretta the junction of the Messina Denaro pizzini
by Salvo Palazzolo
July 14, 2021

On 27 September three years ago, a member of the Gambino clan arrived at Falcone e Borsellino. This is Ernest Grillo , he is 65 years old. He was welcomed with full honors by Natale Puglisi , an entrepreneur considered organic to the Torretta clan, and was arrested last night. Grillo was accompanied to the beautiful villa of Fondo Anfossi, in Mondello, which had been rented for him. Villa with swimming pool. In the bedroom, he found a gift: 5 grams of cocaine. But this wasn't a pleasure trip, there had to be new business at stake. On 2 October, Puglisi accompanied Grillo to Baucina, probably to meet Enzo Varisco, a drug kingpin that Judge Falcone had already investigated in the 1980s, was convicted in the United States, today he runs a restaurant. The next day, Ernest Grillo went to Torretta to meet Raffaele Di Maggio , considered the new head of the family. The police investigation also brought two of his close collaborators to prison: Ignazio Antonino Mannino and Calogero Badalamenti . On October 4th, Ernest Gallo returned to the States.
A few months later, in April 2019, another Gambino family emissary flew to Sicily, to Favara. We know this from another investigation, conducted by the Ros. He was looking for a large company in crisis. To fill with money. And then make it fail, "a fraudulent thing", he explained to the Sicilians. In order to make millions of euros disappear. A maxi recycling operation. "The money comes from Singapore", said the agrigentini mafia who discussed the proposal after the meeting. "They leave us 20 percent." More business in Sicily. From New York to Palermo they moved as if they were a single clan, this emerges from the investigation coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Salvo De Luca , by the substitutes Amelia Luise and Giovanni Antoci .


The return to Palermo of the boss Micalizzi, the "keeper" of Riccobono's treasure
by Salvo Palazzolo
January 27, 2021

The Puglisi brothers spoke of a mysterious man who was to be punished in the USA. There it was not possible. The ceremony was held in Torretta. Here is another emblematic story: the day he was killed in New York Frank Cali, the head of the Gambino family - it was March 13, 2019 - investigators recorded a lot of fibrillation live in Sicily. "This picciutteddu went crazy for the Torrettesi", said the bosses. Once, he was also intercepted on the phone with the Sicilian mafia. Only after a few hours, the godparents calmed down: there was no traitor in the family, Frankie Boy, as he was nicknamed, had been killed by a fool. The confirmation came from a trip to America made by Natale Puglisi's son, Baldassare. On his return, he reported to his father the interview he had with Ernest Grillo, and did not suspect that the car was intercepted: "he said:" Tell your father that everything is fine "". The successor of Frank Calì was already there: the young man named Silvester Davì, officially only the owner of an ice cream shop in New York. "Silvestro has climbed the step ... he is in charge now ... he tells us all what they must do and what they must not do".


This transatlantic clan thing. Someone explain how Davi is Calis successor. I believe he's head of " Sicilian ops in NY", not of the actual Gambino family. Many disagree. Make it make sense.....