by Chucky » Thu Mar 02, 2017 4:02 am
This Week in Gang Land By Jerry Capeci
Preet Goes To White Plains To File Death Penalty Murder Case In Bronx Rubout
Gang Land Exclusive!Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has dramatically raised the stakes for two accused Luchese crime family gangsters who had been awaiting trial in the Bronx for 21 months on state murder charges for the classic gangland-style slaying in 2013 of Michael Meldish, the onetime leader of a notorious group of mob-connected drug dealers called the Purple Gang.
Bharara filed a racketeering and murder indictment against the duo, wiseguy Christopher Londonio and mob associate Terrence Caldwell, that has upped the worst case scenario for each of them from a maximum sentence of life behind bars to the death penalty.
In an unusual move that has been questioned by a federal judge — and mocked by a defense lawyer as the brainstorm of an FBI agent trying to break a long losing streak — the new charges were filed two weeks ago in White Plains. All crimes and overt acts in the six-count indictment are alleged to have taken place in New York, and according to Southern District of New York rules, should have been assigned to a federal judge in Manhattan, not one in White Plains.
As a result, White Plains Federal Judge Nelson Roman ordered the government to tell him why he shouldn't transfer the case to Manhattan since the indictment "only reveals alleged criminal conduct taking place in Manhattan and the Bronx." The judge noted on the docket sheet that his courthouse is the proper venue in cases where "the crime was allegedly committed in whole or predominant part in the Northern Counties."
In a news release, Bharara said his office's White Plains Division and the Violent and Organized Crime Unit handled the case and that they were aided by several local and federal agencies, but he gave no reason why it was filed in White Plains. Judge Roman gave prosecutors Scott Hartman, Jennifer Burns and Hagan Scotten until Monday to explain their reasons for filing the case in White Plains. Prosecutors declined to discuss the issue with Gang Land.
Londonio's attorney, Charles Carnesi, said prosecutors didn't give him any reasons for the move either, but that he believed that veteran FBI agent Theodore Otto, who has been investigating the case for more than two years, was behind the move.
"It seems pretty obvious to me," said Carnesi, "that they tried to steer this case away from Manhattan Federal Court, where Ted hasn't had a lot of success in cases against me in recent years." Citing three hung juries in trials of John (Junior) Gotti, and the dismissal of a murder indictment against Gambino associate Daniel Fama, the lawyer said, "He's 0 for 4."
Of the four cases, the most embarrassing for Otto, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney's office, is the indictment of Fama for a 1990 murder that Bharara and the FBI announced with a flourish in 2013. The U.S. Attorney then ducked all comment a year later when a prosecutor dismissed the case and took heat from an angry judge who had kept Fama behind bars for eight months on an indictment that the government admitted was faulty from the get go.
Bharara and the FBI still won't discuss that case — believed to be the only mob murder indictment dismissed outright in the history of the SDNY. Neither would Carnesi. But the attorney stressed this week that he stands by the comments he made about Otto when Judge John Keenan dismissed Fama's indictment back in April of 2014.
At the time, Carnesi charged Otto with creating a "bogus" murder case and called for him to be fired. The lawyer alleged that Otto pushed prosecutors to indict Fama on charges of killing a government witness when the agent knew that not only was there no evidence to support that charge, but that evidence the government possessed contradicted that murder charge.
"The significant thing to me about the (dismissal)," Carnesi told Gang Land at the time, "is that the decision was based not on new information that was recently learned by the government but on information that was known to Otto, a veteran organized crime agent."
Carnesi said back then that the indictment was really aimed at forcing the defendant to cooperate.
"I believe that's an abuse of his authority," said Carnesi.
The FBI declined to discuss the Londonio or Fama cases yesterday, but in 2014, an FBI spokesman said the agency was "obviously disappointed that the case against Danny Fama was dismissed" but that the FBI had "no reason to believe that any of our agents acted inappropriately in this case."
For the record, Carnesi didn't represent Gotti in his first mistrial, in 2005, and Otto wasn't involved in that case either. But between 2006 and 2009, the lawyer and the agent were bitter opponents in Junior's next three trials. All ended with hung juries, which have to be considered losses for the government, for which Otto played a major role.
Otto, along with the NYPD, the Waterfront Commission, Homeland Security, and the Bronx District Attorney's Office, has been investigating Londonio and his alleged involvement in the Meldish murder for at least two years, according to the news release and related federal court filings.
Londonio, 43, and Caldwell, 58, allegedly killed Meldish as he was seated behind the wheel of his car in front of his Bronx home on November 15, 2013. Caldwell was seated in the car when he allegedly shot Meldish once in the head at the corner of Baisley and Ellsworth Avenues in Throggs Neck. Londonio was the alleged getaway driver who picked up Caldwell after he blew Meldish away.
In addition to Meldish's slaying, Caldwell is also charged with assault and attempted murder for shooting and wounding Bonanno soldier Enzo (The Baker) Stagno at the corner of 111th Street and First Avenue in East Harlem on May 26, 2013.
Each shooting, according to the indictment, was allegedly committed for "the purpose of gaining entrance to" or "maintaining or increasing (their) position" in a racketeering enterprise, namely the Luchese crime family.
It is unlikely that President Trump's newly installed Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, will invoke the death penalty in the case, but if he does, the duo would be the first organized crime defendants to face capital punishment in an SDNY case. There have been two death penalty mob trials in the Eastern District of New York, but each time, a Brooklyn jury opted to impose a life sentence.
Uncle Teddy Persico, Dead At 79; RIP
Theodore (Uncle Teddy) Persico Sr., a Colombo family capo who spent 20 years behind bars for a racketeering conviction stemming from the bloody 1990s mob war that his imprisoned-for-life brother Carmine waged to retain control of the crime family, died last week of natural causes. He was 79.
Teddy Persico Sr., who wasn't implicated in any crime family business following his release in 2013 from a federal prison hospital in Ayer Massachusetts, died of complications relating to several debilitating ailments — lung cancer, diabetes and emphysema — that he has suffered for many years, according to a family friend.
Persico was effectively retired from "the life" when the Grim Reaper called him, sources say.
Law enforcement officials suspected that Uncle Teddy, who was Carmine's only surviving brother at the time of his release — Alphonse, the oldest wiseguy brother died in prison in 1989 — would assume a high-up place in the crime family, but they reported yesterday that he's had little if anything to do with crime family business.
That's not the case with Persico's oldest son, Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico Jr., a capo in the crime family who copped a plea deal to racketeering charges a year before his father got out of prison. Teddy Jr., 53, is currently serving a 12 year stretch at Ray Brook penitentiary in upstate New York. Law enforcement officials view Skinny Teddy, who is slated for release from prison in 2020, as a possible successor to his uncle Carmine, 83.
Carmine, who is serving his 100 year sentence in a prison hospital in North Carolina, asked for a furlough to attend his brother's funeral, but was turned down, said attorney Mathew Mari.
"Uncle Teddy was a tough guy," said Mari. "He drove over every bump in the road with dignity, and never complained. But most of all he was a kind gentleman whose greatest virtue was patience."
Arrested outside St. Patrick's Cathedral on Palm Sunday in 1993, Persico was convicted of racketeering and murder conspiracy charges at a 10 week trial in 1994, and sentenced to 22 years in prison. The key physical evidence against him were cigarette butts found outside a Brooklyn catering hall where he allegedly lay in wait to whack a rival mobster who never showed up.
Persico, who lived in Valley Stream following his release from prison in August of 2013, died at home on Wednesday, February 22.
His one day wake at the Coney Island Memorial Chapel on Mermaid Avenue was attended by scores of friends and relatives, said one friend, who noted: "It wasn't a who's who of organized crime, that's for sure. There were lots of people from Long Island, where he's lived since he got out of prison, and from Brooklyn," where his sister-in-law Joyce, and nephew Michael, reside.
He was entombed at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn on Monday, following a funeral mass at St. Athanasius Church in Bensonhurst.
Persico was laid to rest eight months after his son Daniel, 54, passed away following a seven-year-long battle with cancer.
In addition to son Teddy Jr., Persico is survived by his second wife, Patricia, and their sons, Sean, Carmine, Alphonse and Sebastian.
Feds: Your Hubby's A Millionaire Mobster, We're Taking Your Home
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn seem to be pulling out all the stops in their efforts to tie Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro and his wiseguy nephew Ronald Giallanzo to a home invasion robbery ring that terrorized Howard Beach and other areas of Queens and Long Island in recent years.
Usually the feds move to seize homes and property of wiseguys as part of an indictment, but in this case the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office seems to be using the opposite tactic: trying to seize property of a gangster they are looking to indict.
A month ago, they filed a civil suit that seeks the forfeiture of a $1.2 million home in Howard Beach that is owned by Giallanzo's wife Elizabeth. The grounds? It was recently renovated and refurbished with money that Giallanzo allegedly earned illegally as an inducted member of the Bonanno crime family during the last 17 years.
Sources say that the civil forfeiture suit, which was filed on January 31, is part of a continuing grand jury investigation that is looking into allegations that link Asaro and Giallanzo to a series of home invasion robberies. The robberies were pulled off from 2013 to 2015 by several hoodlums who have begun cooperating with authorities.
As Gang Land disclosed in September, two members of the robbery team, Frank Nunziata and Gene Borrello, have been cooperating with a long-running joint investigation by the FBI, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office, the NYPD, and the Queens District Attorney's office.
Sources say the feds have evidence that ties the duo, as well as a third member of the home invasion team, William Dublyn to criminal activities with either Asaro or Giallanzo. FBI agents transported Dublyn to New York last August after spiriting him out of a Florida prison where he was serving six years for robbery.
The status of Dublyn, 35, is unclear. He was confined at a federal lockup in Brooklyn for a time, but he is not currently listed as an inmate by either the federal Bureau of Prisons or the California prison system. John Marzulli, the spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office, declined to answer any questions about Dublyn, or the investigation.
The lawsuit, which comes several months after books and financial records that allegedly linked Giallanzo to the robbery crew were subpoenaed by the grand jury, seeks to seize the four-bedroom home that sits on the 8000 square foot corner lot at 164-04 86th Street in Howard Beach.
The suit was filed less than two months after the 46-year-old mobster returned to his home following a year behind bars for a violation of supervised release (VOSR) restrictions following an eight year stretch he served for a 2007 guilty plea to extortion. Along with several others, he was hit with VOSR for attending a Christmas party hosted by acting Bonanno boss, Joseph (Joe Saunders Jr.) Cammarano Jr.
In the civil suit, assistant U.S. attorney Tanya Hill alleges that over the years Giallanzo has earned "millions of dollars in illicit proceeds" through loansharking, extortion and illegal gambling.
Hill argues that since "the vast majority of Giallanzo's income has been derived from illegal activity" and was used "to purchase, construct and renovate" the home, it can and should be forfeited to the government, stating that Elizabeth Giallanzo is only the "nominal owner" of the property.
Mrs. Giallanzo's attorney, Raymond Granger, disagrees with the government's claims. He told Gang Land that he will soon file papers contesting the government's civil suit.
This Week in Gang Land By Jerry Capeci
[b]Preet Goes To White Plains To File Death Penalty Murder Case In Bronx Rubout [/b]
Gang Land Exclusive!Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has dramatically raised the stakes for two accused Luchese crime family gangsters who had been awaiting trial in the Bronx for 21 months on state murder charges for the classic gangland-style slaying in 2013 of Michael Meldish, the onetime leader of a notorious group of mob-connected drug dealers called the Purple Gang.
Bharara filed a racketeering and murder indictment against the duo, wiseguy Christopher Londonio and mob associate Terrence Caldwell, that has upped the worst case scenario for each of them from a maximum sentence of life behind bars to the death penalty.
In an unusual move that has been questioned by a federal judge — and mocked by a defense lawyer as the brainstorm of an FBI agent trying to break a long losing streak — the new charges were filed two weeks ago in White Plains. All crimes and overt acts in the six-count indictment are alleged to have taken place in New York, and according to Southern District of New York rules, should have been assigned to a federal judge in Manhattan, not one in White Plains.
As a result, White Plains Federal Judge Nelson Roman ordered the government to tell him why he shouldn't transfer the case to Manhattan since the indictment "only reveals alleged criminal conduct taking place in Manhattan and the Bronx." The judge noted on the docket sheet that his courthouse is the proper venue in cases where "the crime was allegedly committed in whole or predominant part in the Northern Counties."
In a news release, Bharara said his office's White Plains Division and the Violent and Organized Crime Unit handled the case and that they were aided by several local and federal agencies, but he gave no reason why it was filed in White Plains. Judge Roman gave prosecutors Scott Hartman, Jennifer Burns and Hagan Scotten until Monday to explain their reasons for filing the case in White Plains. Prosecutors declined to discuss the issue with Gang Land.
Londonio's attorney, Charles Carnesi, said prosecutors didn't give him any reasons for the move either, but that he believed that veteran FBI agent Theodore Otto, who has been investigating the case for more than two years, was behind the move.
"It seems pretty obvious to me," said Carnesi, "that they tried to steer this case away from Manhattan Federal Court, where Ted hasn't had a lot of success in cases against me in recent years." Citing three hung juries in trials of John (Junior) Gotti, and the dismissal of a murder indictment against Gambino associate Daniel Fama, the lawyer said, "He's 0 for 4."
Of the four cases, the most embarrassing for Otto, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney's office, is the indictment of Fama for a 1990 murder that Bharara and the FBI announced with a flourish in 2013. The U.S. Attorney then ducked all comment a year later when a prosecutor dismissed the case and took heat from an angry judge who had kept Fama behind bars for eight months on an indictment that the government admitted was faulty from the get go.
Bharara and the FBI still won't discuss that case — believed to be the only mob murder indictment dismissed outright in the history of the SDNY. Neither would Carnesi. But the attorney stressed this week that he stands by the comments he made about Otto when Judge John Keenan dismissed Fama's indictment back in April of 2014.
At the time, Carnesi charged Otto with creating a "bogus" murder case and called for him to be fired. The lawyer alleged that Otto pushed prosecutors to indict Fama on charges of killing a government witness when the agent knew that not only was there no evidence to support that charge, but that evidence the government possessed contradicted that murder charge.
"The significant thing to me about the (dismissal)," Carnesi told Gang Land at the time, "is that the decision was based not on new information that was recently learned by the government but on information that was known to Otto, a veteran organized crime agent."
Carnesi said back then that the indictment was really aimed at forcing the defendant to cooperate.
"I believe that's an abuse of his authority," said Carnesi.
The FBI declined to discuss the Londonio or Fama cases yesterday, but in 2014, an FBI spokesman said the agency was "obviously disappointed that the case against Danny Fama was dismissed" but that the FBI had "no reason to believe that any of our agents acted inappropriately in this case."
For the record, Carnesi didn't represent Gotti in his first mistrial, in 2005, and Otto wasn't involved in that case either. But between 2006 and 2009, the lawyer and the agent were bitter opponents in Junior's next three trials. All ended with hung juries, which have to be considered losses for the government, for which Otto played a major role.
Otto, along with the NYPD, the Waterfront Commission, Homeland Security, and the Bronx District Attorney's Office, has been investigating Londonio and his alleged involvement in the Meldish murder for at least two years, according to the news release and related federal court filings.
Londonio, 43, and Caldwell, 58, allegedly killed Meldish as he was seated behind the wheel of his car in front of his Bronx home on November 15, 2013. Caldwell was seated in the car when he allegedly shot Meldish once in the head at the corner of Baisley and Ellsworth Avenues in Throggs Neck. Londonio was the alleged getaway driver who picked up Caldwell after he blew Meldish away.
In addition to Meldish's slaying, Caldwell is also charged with assault and attempted murder for shooting and wounding Bonanno soldier Enzo (The Baker) Stagno at the corner of 111th Street and First Avenue in East Harlem on May 26, 2013.
Each shooting, according to the indictment, was allegedly committed for "the purpose of gaining entrance to" or "maintaining or increasing (their) position" in a racketeering enterprise, namely the Luchese crime family.
It is unlikely that President Trump's newly installed Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, will invoke the death penalty in the case, but if he does, the duo would be the first organized crime defendants to face capital punishment in an SDNY case. There have been two death penalty mob trials in the Eastern District of New York, but each time, a Brooklyn jury opted to impose a life sentence.
[b]Uncle Teddy Persico, Dead At 79; RIP[/b]
Theodore (Uncle Teddy) Persico Sr., a Colombo family capo who spent 20 years behind bars for a racketeering conviction stemming from the bloody 1990s mob war that his imprisoned-for-life brother Carmine waged to retain control of the crime family, died last week of natural causes. He was 79.
Teddy Persico Sr., who wasn't implicated in any crime family business following his release in 2013 from a federal prison hospital in Ayer Massachusetts, died of complications relating to several debilitating ailments — lung cancer, diabetes and emphysema — that he has suffered for many years, according to a family friend.
Persico was effectively retired from "the life" when the Grim Reaper called him, sources say.
Law enforcement officials suspected that Uncle Teddy, who was Carmine's only surviving brother at the time of his release — Alphonse, the oldest wiseguy brother died in prison in 1989 — would assume a high-up place in the crime family, but they reported yesterday that he's had little if anything to do with crime family business.
That's not the case with Persico's oldest son, Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico Jr., a capo in the crime family who copped a plea deal to racketeering charges a year before his father got out of prison. Teddy Jr., 53, is currently serving a 12 year stretch at Ray Brook penitentiary in upstate New York. Law enforcement officials view Skinny Teddy, who is slated for release from prison in 2020, as a possible successor to his uncle Carmine, 83.
Carmine, who is serving his 100 year sentence in a prison hospital in North Carolina, asked for a furlough to attend his brother's funeral, but was turned down, said attorney Mathew Mari.
"Uncle Teddy was a tough guy," said Mari. "He drove over every bump in the road with dignity, and never complained. But most of all he was a kind gentleman whose greatest virtue was patience."
Arrested outside St. Patrick's Cathedral on Palm Sunday in 1993, Persico was convicted of racketeering and murder conspiracy charges at a 10 week trial in 1994, and sentenced to 22 years in prison. The key physical evidence against him were cigarette butts found outside a Brooklyn catering hall where he allegedly lay in wait to whack a rival mobster who never showed up.
Persico, who lived in Valley Stream following his release from prison in August of 2013, died at home on Wednesday, February 22.
His one day wake at the Coney Island Memorial Chapel on Mermaid Avenue was attended by scores of friends and relatives, said one friend, who noted: "It wasn't a who's who of organized crime, that's for sure. There were lots of people from Long Island, where he's lived since he got out of prison, and from Brooklyn," where his sister-in-law Joyce, and nephew Michael, reside.
He was entombed at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn on Monday, following a funeral mass at St. Athanasius Church in Bensonhurst.
Persico was laid to rest eight months after his son Daniel, 54, passed away following a seven-year-long battle with cancer.
In addition to son Teddy Jr., Persico is survived by his second wife, Patricia, and their sons, Sean, Carmine, Alphonse and Sebastian.
[b]Feds: Your Hubby's A Millionaire Mobster, We're Taking Your Home[/b]
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn seem to be pulling out all the stops in their efforts to tie Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro and his wiseguy nephew Ronald Giallanzo to a home invasion robbery ring that terrorized Howard Beach and other areas of Queens and Long Island in recent years.
Usually the feds move to seize homes and property of wiseguys as part of an indictment, but in this case the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office seems to be using the opposite tactic: trying to seize property of a gangster they are looking to indict.
A month ago, they filed a civil suit that seeks the forfeiture of a $1.2 million home in Howard Beach that is owned by Giallanzo's wife Elizabeth. The grounds? It was recently renovated and refurbished with money that Giallanzo allegedly earned illegally as an inducted member of the Bonanno crime family during the last 17 years.
Sources say that the civil forfeiture suit, which was filed on January 31, is part of a continuing grand jury investigation that is looking into allegations that link Asaro and Giallanzo to a series of home invasion robberies. The robberies were pulled off from 2013 to 2015 by several hoodlums who have begun cooperating with authorities.
As Gang Land disclosed in September, two members of the robbery team, Frank Nunziata and Gene Borrello, have been cooperating with a long-running joint investigation by the FBI, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office, the NYPD, and the Queens District Attorney's office.
Sources say the feds have evidence that ties the duo, as well as a third member of the home invasion team, William Dublyn to criminal activities with either Asaro or Giallanzo. FBI agents transported Dublyn to New York last August after spiriting him out of a Florida prison where he was serving six years for robbery.
The status of Dublyn, 35, is unclear. He was confined at a federal lockup in Brooklyn for a time, but he is not currently listed as an inmate by either the federal Bureau of Prisons or the California prison system. John Marzulli, the spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office, declined to answer any questions about Dublyn, or the investigation.
The lawsuit, which comes several months after books and financial records that allegedly linked Giallanzo to the robbery crew were subpoenaed by the grand jury, seeks to seize the four-bedroom home that sits on the 8000 square foot corner lot at 164-04 86th Street in Howard Beach.
The suit was filed less than two months after the 46-year-old mobster returned to his home following a year behind bars for a violation of supervised release (VOSR) restrictions following an eight year stretch he served for a 2007 guilty plea to extortion. Along with several others, he was hit with VOSR for attending a Christmas party hosted by acting Bonanno boss, Joseph (Joe Saunders Jr.) Cammarano Jr.
In the civil suit, assistant U.S. attorney Tanya Hill alleges that over the years Giallanzo has earned "millions of dollars in illicit proceeds" through loansharking, extortion and illegal gambling.
Hill argues that since "the vast majority of Giallanzo's income has been derived from illegal activity" and was used "to purchase, construct and renovate" the home, it can and should be forfeited to the government, stating that Elizabeth Giallanzo is only the "nominal owner" of the property.
Mrs. Giallanzo's attorney, Raymond Granger, disagrees with the government's claims. He told Gang Land that he will soon file papers contesting the government's civil suit.