by Dellacroce » Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:17 am
April 21, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci
Estate Of Top Wiseguy's Son Grows By Leaps And Bounds A Year After His Death
Joel (JoJo) Cacace Jr., the late son of the imprisoned Colombo family consigliere, must have had an awful lot on his mind on October 7, 2014, the day he signed a suspicious-looking "last will and testament" making his teenaged daughter, Dina Marie, his sole beneficiary. First off, Cacace, who died less than three months after the will was signed of a sudden heart attack at age 44 on New Year's Day of 2015, failed to notice that his name was misspelled in four places on the document.
He also plum forgot to list two of the three homes he owned. And his extensive baseball and comic book collections. Plus his much-prized bright orange Harley Davidson. The bike seems especially hard to forget: It was a 2004 Screamin' Eagle Electra Glide. It was featured, along with a picture of Cacace, on the cover of Full Throttle Magazine last June, as the magazine announced a fundraiser for JoJo.
But according to court filings by his mother in a complicated family legal wrangle over the will, that's exactly what he did. As a result he understated the value of his estate by more than $600,000, according to one analysis, and possibly by much more, in the hotly-contested will.
As Gang Land has already disclosed, the dubious document has some other strange aspects. It also includes a type-written date that appears to be May, 2015 — four months after JoJo's death — that's been crossed out. Atop it, someone hand-wrote a new date of October 7, 2014.
Then there's the will's provisions. It places all the assets into a trust for Cacace's only child, a teenaged daughter named Dina Marie. That much makes sense. But it calls for JoJo's mother, Vita Rose Cacace, who filed the will for probate, to be in charge of the assets until Dina Marie is 31. Apparently JoJo must've thought his daughter was going to be very slow to mature. It also contains a so-called "poison pill" clause that leaves his little girl with nothing if she were to contest the will and lose.
Whatever the document's authenticity, young Dina Marie isn't buying. She has challenged the validity of the document, whose provisions seem more like one of those scams granddad Joel Cacace Sr. pulled back in the days he was a top Colombo crime family capo.
Last December 15, nearly a year after her son died, and a month after our initial report, Vita Rose alerted the Suffolk County Surrogate's Court about the other properties owned by her son's estate. She also requested that she be appointed a temporary executor of the estate so she could sell the properties because they were "at risk of being lost to a tax lien sale."
In the filing, Ms. Cacace claimed that the estate had "no financial assets" to pay outstanding tax bills totaling $51,000 for the two rental properties. She stated that the estate also needed money to start eviction proceedings against a tenant who had failed to pay any rent for 15 months.
The application lists the total value of JoJo's three properties, which are all located in Deer Park, at $525,000. But that's a decidedly low-ball estimate according to experts. Propertyshark.com, a respected real estate industry database, estimates the value at around $1 million. One local real estate broker said they are worth even more, closer to $1.1 million.
The battle over the will is made more complicated by the fact that Dina Marie's parents never married. They shared custody of Dina Marie and raised her together, according to Gang Land sources. But in September of 2014, at the start of the teen's junior year at Deer Park High School, she began living with her dad full-time from Monday to Friday. The reason was that Cacace's home was a five minute walk from her school, a much easier commute than the 30-minute ride from North Babylon with her mom, Laura Meyer.
According to postings on Meyer's Facebook page, after Cacace died, his family threw Dina Marie out of the house, even refusing to return clothes and other items until early this year.
The application to sell the properties and make Vita Rose the temporary executor was filed by attorney Edwin Black of Huntington. "The parcels need to be sold to carry the costs of maintaining the properties," Black stated in the application.
Contacted by Gang Land, Black said that Surrogate Judge John Czygier agreed to appoint Vita Rose as a "preliminary executor" to safeguard the properties. But the lawyer declined to discuss their values or how his client's son could have forgotten to include two homes on his will back in October of 2014, citing lawyer-client privilege.
"I have no comment whatsoever on the estate," said Black. "If there's public record and you find it that's fine. I don't want to represent my client in any venue other than court."
The order signed by Judge Czygier does appoint Vita Rose Cacace as a preliminary executor. But it prohibits her from selling any "real property of the estate … without further order of the Court." The Judge's handwritten order also directed grandma Cacace to "deliver the personal property belonging to Dina Marie Cacace" that was still in Vita Rose's possession to her granddaughter within 20 days.
Before Black clammed up, however, he blamed his adversaries for gumming up the works in the pending probate, which he wrote in his filings he expected to be resolved last month. He told Gang Land that a dispute between Dina Marie Cacace and her attorney Stephen Bilkis of Baldwin, who sought permission to drop her as a client, has stalled the case.
In papers seeking to withdraw, Bilkis wrote that Dina Marie "has failed to meaningfully participate in her case," and has exhausted the $3500 retainer that her mom gave him a year ago. He stated that Dina Marie currently owes him $6967.97 for services that his firm has already provided. Bilkis noted in his filing that Dina Marie was a minor when he was retained, but when she turned 18 last July, she became liable for the legal fees. Czygier scheduled a hearing on the matter for May 3.
Gang Land could not reach Bilkis or Dina Marie. Neither returned our calls. Meyer, who told Gang Land in November that the Cacace family's actions against Dina Marie were "a shame and unethical," declined to talk about the case until it was resolved. "I will file a response with the judge, and be in court next month," she said.
In recent months, important rulings in Dina Marie's legal fight with her grandmother have spurred Meyer to publish emotional thoughts about the case on her Facebook page.
In February, after Vita Rose finally returned clothes and other possessions to her granddaughter 13 months after she was evicted from her father's house, Meyer posted an "engagement picture" of her and JoJo when she was five months pregnant, and noted: "Least I got some of my pictures back from the Jefferson house."
And earlier this month, after learning that her daughter's attorney had asked to bow out of the case, and Judge Szygier ordered a hearing on the issue for next month, she posted a picture of JoJo, with emojis of a sad face and a broken heart and the words: "Why do I have to go thru all this. We need you here."
At this point, Dina Marie needs the services of a good lawyer. Or a long-distance phone call from Tucson, Arizona by her grandpa, Joseph (Joe Waverly) Cacace — not to her — but to his brood to tell them to give his granddaughter a break, 15 months after her father's death.
Goveernment Screwup Gives Powerful Wiseguy An Extra-Sweet Plea Deal
No wonder Genovese capo Daniel Pagano was so quick to plead guilty 13 months ago, less than seven months after he was indicted for heading a three-year-long racketeering scheme involving gambling, loansharking and extortion. Turns out his wise-old attorney had worked out a plea agreement with a suggested prison term that was 14-to-18 months lower than what it should have been.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Ronnie Abrams disclosed that last week when she put off the sentencing of a Pagano underling whose recommended prison term was tabulated to be between 41 to 51 months — which is the same time behind bars that the 62-year-old wiseguy should have faced, the judge said.
However, the plea agreement that Murray Richman, the mobster's septuagenarian Bronx-based attorney known as Don't Worry Murray by clients from the South Bronx to North Riverdale and beyond for more than 50 years, had worked out with a trio of federal prosecutors contained sentencing guidelines of 27-to-33 months.
"I guess I've learned a few things about lawyering in my 52 years as an attorney," said Richman.
Pagano's last prison stretch was a lot stiffer: He got eight years for overseeing his crime family's end of a lucrative bootleg gasoline bootlegging scheme with Russian gangsters. That bid ended in 2007. In his recent case, a Pre-Sentence Report prepared by probation officials recommended the 27-month sentence that Judge Abrams meted out. Prosecutors asked for a prison term within the guidelines, which are only advisory.
Pagano's light sentence may end up helping his co-defendant, Michael (Mikey P) Palazzolo. His attorney has argued that his client was a lowly gangster and deserved a lesser sentence than his mob superior. Abrams noted the dramatic difference in prison terms in a two-page ruling in which she postponed Palazzolo's sentencing until next week.
In it, the judge directed defense lawyer Lloyd Epstein and prosecutors to address the discrepancies in the two plea agreements. She also asked if the attorneys believed they should affect how Abrams determines Mikey P's prison term, "particularly in light of" sentencing statutes that call for judges ''to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct."
In their original sentencing memo, prosecutors Jennifer Burns, Abigail Kurland, Scott Hartman and Rebekah Donaleski, acknowledged that Pagano was a powerful mob capo and that Palazzolo was an underling. But they argued that his propensity for violence and his willingness to flaunt it against potential victims during the racketeering conspiracy called for a greater sentence.
"Significantly," they wrote, "there was no evidence connecting Pagano to violence in connection with his conduct. By contrast, Palazzolo was involved in multiple extortions, using threats and the willingness to act in a violent manner to further the goals of the conspiracy."
In their next filing, prosecutors will have to skin back on arguments they made regarding the respective sentencing guidelines of the defendants now that Judge Abrams, without any protest from the government, has ruled that Pagano's numbers were wrong.
Gang Land expects defense attorney Epstein to renew his request that Mikey P receive a lesser prison term than the one that Pagano received, and argue, essentially, that in this case, the old adage, Two wrongs don't make a right, is wrong and that the opposite of the old adage applies; namely: Two wrongs will make it right.
Feds Loot Ten Gs from 99-Year Old Mobster's Commissary
He's not complaining, but the feds have seized ten large from oldest-living wiseguy John (Sonny) Franzese's very fat commissary account, and put it toward a $116,000 forfeiture he owes the government. That's exactly what they had threatened to do in a pre-Christmas missive they sent to the aging Mafioso at the federal prison hospital where he's slated to reside until next year.
But the legendary Colombo gangster's nephew, a businessman named Jason Froccaro, has raised a stink about it. In an affidavit, Froccaro states that he was the "actual owner" of the money ($9838.62) that the feds took from his uncle's account on February 4. The seizure came just two days before Franzese celebrated his 99th birthday (talk about Grinches!) at the medical facility in Ayer Massachusetts. And Froccaro wants it back.
Froccaro operates a Burger King franchise in Port Washington. He is also the president of Mega Burgers, a company with 35 employees that generates yearly gross revenue of $1.2 million. He's been depositing funds into Sonny's Inmate Trust Account for nearly six years and the feds had no business taking it, he told Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan in papers filed by Franzese's attorney, Richard Lind.
Prosecutor Laura Mantell cited several reasons why Cogan should dismiss the claim: Froccaro has no proof the seized cash was ever his, since there are ten contributors to Franzese's account. Even if it was his money, he still has no legal claim to it because, once he gave it to Sonny, it was no longer Froccaro's. Also, since Lind is Sonny's lawyer, he has a conflict of interest in also representing Froccaro.
Lind asked Cogan to order Mantell to turn over whatever evidence the government has regarding its claim that ten persons gave money to Franzese, and to give him time to contact Franzese to determine whether he will waive any conflict of interest claim.
The Judge agreed with the lawyer's requests. Lind's response is due tomorrow.
In the market for a good read? To add to your own book collection? For a friend?
Check out our Gang Land Book Shelf.
April 21, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci
Estate Of Top Wiseguy's Son Grows By Leaps And Bounds A Year After His Death
Joel (JoJo) Cacace Jr., the late son of the imprisoned Colombo family consigliere, must have had an awful lot on his mind on October 7, 2014, the day he signed a suspicious-looking "last will and testament" making his teenaged daughter, Dina Marie, his sole beneficiary. First off, Cacace, who died less than three months after the will was signed of a sudden heart attack at age 44 on New Year's Day of 2015, failed to notice that his name was misspelled in four places on the document.
He also plum forgot to list two of the three homes he owned. And his extensive baseball and comic book collections. Plus his much-prized bright orange Harley Davidson. The bike seems especially hard to forget: It was a 2004 Screamin' Eagle Electra Glide. It was featured, along with a picture of Cacace, on the cover of Full Throttle Magazine last June, as the magazine announced a fundraiser for JoJo.
But according to court filings by his mother in a complicated family legal wrangle over the will, that's exactly what he did. As a result he understated the value of his estate by more than $600,000, according to one analysis, and possibly by much more, in the hotly-contested will.
As Gang Land has already disclosed, the dubious document has some other strange aspects. It also includes a type-written date that appears to be May, 2015 — four months after JoJo's death — that's been crossed out. Atop it, someone hand-wrote a new date of October 7, 2014.
Then there's the will's provisions. It places all the assets into a trust for Cacace's only child, a teenaged daughter named Dina Marie. That much makes sense. But it calls for JoJo's mother, Vita Rose Cacace, who filed the will for probate, to be in charge of the assets until Dina Marie is 31. Apparently JoJo must've thought his daughter was going to be very slow to mature. It also contains a so-called "poison pill" clause that leaves his little girl with nothing if she were to contest the will and lose.
Whatever the document's authenticity, young Dina Marie isn't buying. She has challenged the validity of the document, whose provisions seem more like one of those scams granddad Joel Cacace Sr. pulled back in the days he was a top Colombo crime family capo.
Last December 15, nearly a year after her son died, and a month after our initial report, Vita Rose alerted the Suffolk County Surrogate's Court about the other properties owned by her son's estate. She also requested that she be appointed a temporary executor of the estate so she could sell the properties because they were "at risk of being lost to a tax lien sale."
In the filing, Ms. Cacace claimed that the estate had "no financial assets" to pay outstanding tax bills totaling $51,000 for the two rental properties. She stated that the estate also needed money to start eviction proceedings against a tenant who had failed to pay any rent for 15 months.
The application lists the total value of JoJo's three properties, which are all located in Deer Park, at $525,000. But that's a decidedly low-ball estimate according to experts. Propertyshark.com, a respected real estate industry database, estimates the value at around $1 million. One local real estate broker said they are worth even more, closer to $1.1 million.
The battle over the will is made more complicated by the fact that Dina Marie's parents never married. They shared custody of Dina Marie and raised her together, according to Gang Land sources. But in September of 2014, at the start of the teen's junior year at Deer Park High School, she began living with her dad full-time from Monday to Friday. The reason was that Cacace's home was a five minute walk from her school, a much easier commute than the 30-minute ride from North Babylon with her mom, Laura Meyer.
According to postings on Meyer's Facebook page, after Cacace died, his family threw Dina Marie out of the house, even refusing to return clothes and other items until early this year.
The application to sell the properties and make Vita Rose the temporary executor was filed by attorney Edwin Black of Huntington. "The parcels need to be sold to carry the costs of maintaining the properties," Black stated in the application.
Contacted by Gang Land, Black said that Surrogate Judge John Czygier agreed to appoint Vita Rose as a "preliminary executor" to safeguard the properties. But the lawyer declined to discuss their values or how his client's son could have forgotten to include two homes on his will back in October of 2014, citing lawyer-client privilege.
"I have no comment whatsoever on the estate," said Black. "If there's public record and you find it that's fine. I don't want to represent my client in any venue other than court."
The order signed by Judge Czygier does appoint Vita Rose Cacace as a preliminary executor. But it prohibits her from selling any "real property of the estate … without further order of the Court." The Judge's handwritten order also directed grandma Cacace to "deliver the personal property belonging to Dina Marie Cacace" that was still in Vita Rose's possession to her granddaughter within 20 days.
Before Black clammed up, however, he blamed his adversaries for gumming up the works in the pending probate, which he wrote in his filings he expected to be resolved last month. He told Gang Land that a dispute between Dina Marie Cacace and her attorney Stephen Bilkis of Baldwin, who sought permission to drop her as a client, has stalled the case.
In papers seeking to withdraw, Bilkis wrote that Dina Marie "has failed to meaningfully participate in her case," and has exhausted the $3500 retainer that her mom gave him a year ago. He stated that Dina Marie currently owes him $6967.97 for services that his firm has already provided. Bilkis noted in his filing that Dina Marie was a minor when he was retained, but when she turned 18 last July, she became liable for the legal fees. Czygier scheduled a hearing on the matter for May 3.
Gang Land could not reach Bilkis or Dina Marie. Neither returned our calls. Meyer, who told Gang Land in November that the Cacace family's actions against Dina Marie were "a shame and unethical," declined to talk about the case until it was resolved. "I will file a response with the judge, and be in court next month," she said.
In recent months, important rulings in Dina Marie's legal fight with her grandmother have spurred Meyer to publish emotional thoughts about the case on her Facebook page.
In February, after Vita Rose finally returned clothes and other possessions to her granddaughter 13 months after she was evicted from her father's house, Meyer posted an "engagement picture" of her and JoJo when she was five months pregnant, and noted: "Least I got some of my pictures back from the Jefferson house."
And earlier this month, after learning that her daughter's attorney had asked to bow out of the case, and Judge Szygier ordered a hearing on the issue for next month, she posted a picture of JoJo, with emojis of a sad face and a broken heart and the words: "Why do I have to go thru all this. We need you here."
At this point, Dina Marie needs the services of a good lawyer. Or a long-distance phone call from Tucson, Arizona by her grandpa, Joseph (Joe Waverly) Cacace — not to her — but to his brood to tell them to give his granddaughter a break, 15 months after her father's death.
Goveernment Screwup Gives Powerful Wiseguy An Extra-Sweet Plea Deal
No wonder Genovese capo Daniel Pagano was so quick to plead guilty 13 months ago, less than seven months after he was indicted for heading a three-year-long racketeering scheme involving gambling, loansharking and extortion. Turns out his wise-old attorney had worked out a plea agreement with a suggested prison term that was 14-to-18 months lower than what it should have been.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Ronnie Abrams disclosed that last week when she put off the sentencing of a Pagano underling whose recommended prison term was tabulated to be between 41 to 51 months — which is the same time behind bars that the 62-year-old wiseguy should have faced, the judge said.
However, the plea agreement that Murray Richman, the mobster's septuagenarian Bronx-based attorney known as Don't Worry Murray by clients from the South Bronx to North Riverdale and beyond for more than 50 years, had worked out with a trio of federal prosecutors contained sentencing guidelines of 27-to-33 months.
"I guess I've learned a few things about lawyering in my 52 years as an attorney," said Richman.
Pagano's last prison stretch was a lot stiffer: He got eight years for overseeing his crime family's end of a lucrative bootleg gasoline bootlegging scheme with Russian gangsters. That bid ended in 2007. In his recent case, a Pre-Sentence Report prepared by probation officials recommended the 27-month sentence that Judge Abrams meted out. Prosecutors asked for a prison term within the guidelines, which are only advisory.
Pagano's light sentence may end up helping his co-defendant, Michael (Mikey P) Palazzolo. His attorney has argued that his client was a lowly gangster and deserved a lesser sentence than his mob superior. Abrams noted the dramatic difference in prison terms in a two-page ruling in which she postponed Palazzolo's sentencing until next week.
In it, the judge directed defense lawyer Lloyd Epstein and prosecutors to address the discrepancies in the two plea agreements. She also asked if the attorneys believed they should affect how Abrams determines Mikey P's prison term, "particularly in light of" sentencing statutes that call for judges ''to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct."
In their original sentencing memo, prosecutors Jennifer Burns, Abigail Kurland, Scott Hartman and Rebekah Donaleski, acknowledged that Pagano was a powerful mob capo and that Palazzolo was an underling. But they argued that his propensity for violence and his willingness to flaunt it against potential victims during the racketeering conspiracy called for a greater sentence.
"Significantly," they wrote, "there was no evidence connecting Pagano to violence in connection with his conduct. By contrast, Palazzolo was involved in multiple extortions, using threats and the willingness to act in a violent manner to further the goals of the conspiracy."
In their next filing, prosecutors will have to skin back on arguments they made regarding the respective sentencing guidelines of the defendants now that Judge Abrams, without any protest from the government, has ruled that Pagano's numbers were wrong.
Gang Land expects defense attorney Epstein to renew his request that Mikey P receive a lesser prison term than the one that Pagano received, and argue, essentially, that in this case, the old adage, Two wrongs don't make a right, is wrong and that the opposite of the old adage applies; namely: Two wrongs will make it right.
Feds Loot Ten Gs from 99-Year Old Mobster's Commissary
He's not complaining, but the feds have seized ten large from oldest-living wiseguy John (Sonny) Franzese's very fat commissary account, and put it toward a $116,000 forfeiture he owes the government. That's exactly what they had threatened to do in a pre-Christmas missive they sent to the aging Mafioso at the federal prison hospital where he's slated to reside until next year.
But the legendary Colombo gangster's nephew, a businessman named Jason Froccaro, has raised a stink about it. In an affidavit, Froccaro states that he was the "actual owner" of the money ($9838.62) that the feds took from his uncle's account on February 4. The seizure came just two days before Franzese celebrated his 99th birthday (talk about Grinches!) at the medical facility in Ayer Massachusetts. And Froccaro wants it back.
Froccaro operates a Burger King franchise in Port Washington. He is also the president of Mega Burgers, a company with 35 employees that generates yearly gross revenue of $1.2 million. He's been depositing funds into Sonny's Inmate Trust Account for nearly six years and the feds had no business taking it, he told Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan in papers filed by Franzese's attorney, Richard Lind.
Prosecutor Laura Mantell cited several reasons why Cogan should dismiss the claim: Froccaro has no proof the seized cash was ever his, since there are ten contributors to Franzese's account. Even if it was his money, he still has no legal claim to it because, once he gave it to Sonny, it was no longer Froccaro's. Also, since Lind is Sonny's lawyer, he has a conflict of interest in also representing Froccaro.
Lind asked Cogan to order Mantell to turn over whatever evidence the government has regarding its claim that ten persons gave money to Franzese, and to give him time to contact Franzese to determine whether he will waive any conflict of interest claim.
The Judge agreed with the lawyer's requests. Lind's response is due tomorrow.
In the market for a good read? To add to your own book collection? For a friend?
Check out our Gang Land Book Shelf.