by Dr031718 » Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:24 pm
FBI Agents 'Lost' Cell Tower Records In Mikey Spat Case
Gang Land Exclusive!Michael SpataroThe conviction of Michael (Mikey Spat) Spataro for the failed rubout of a Colombo mobster who was shot and wounded as he left the beach in Coney Island in July of 2001 just took another curious turn.
Gang Land has learned that two months after the shooting, the FBI lost cell tower phone records of several suspects in the case. The records disappeared after two mob-busting G-men responded to the 9-11 terror attack on the World Trade Center.
The details are sketchy and confusing, but several former law enforcement officials have told Gang Land that the agents lost the printouts, which included cell tower records of Spataro's phone. According to the officials, the records could have cleared Mikey Spat of any role in the shooting, for which he was convicted in 2006, and sentenced to 24 years, a term that won't end until 2025.
It's unclear whether the startling information — which was confirmed by three former officials — will have an impact on the oral arguments that Brooklyn Federal Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall is slated to hear about his case next week. In a long-pending motion, Spataro is asking DeArcy Hall to dismiss a federal gun conviction that added 10 years to his prison term and reduce his sentence to "time served."
Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall"No matter what happens next week," said former U.S. Marshal Michael Pizzi, who has been investigating the case for Mikey Spat since 2010, "I think this is blockbuster information that should have been disclosed to Spataro's lawyers, but never was, as far as I have been able to determine." Pizzi, as Gang Land has previously reported, maintains that Spataro, a longtime mob associate, was wrongly convicted of being part of the attempted murder plot.
Cell tower records cannot place a suspect at the scene of a crime, but they can determine whether a person was in close proximity to the location. They can also be used to confirm other evidence, and can suggest that a suspect was too far away from a crime scene to have been involved. Cops and FBI agents routinely subpoena cell tower records of phones of potential suspects in numerous cases.
The records can also be so-called Brady Material that tends to exonerate a suspect and must be turned over to the defense. Since October, in the wake of so many rulings chiding prosecutors for failing to adhere to the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brady v. Maryland, federal judges have been informing prosecutors of their "Brady obligations" in the first court session of all criminal cases.
James DeStefanoNone of the former officials who told Gang Land that James DeStefano and Gary Pontecorvo, the since-retired agents who obtained the records in August of 2001 of phones used by Spataro and other suspects in the shooting had intentionally discarded the records for improper reasons.
"There was never any intent of wrongdoing," said one, who like the others who confirmed the lost records, spoke only after being granted anonymity. "They didn't lose them on purpose. They tried to get them again, but they were unable to retrieve them," the ex-official said, explaining that there was a six-month window to get the records.
That time frame was essentially confirmed by several current and former prosecutors, although some noted that some companies retained cell phone records much longer — up to 18 months — while others kept then as little as three months.
"They had gotten the hard copies, but they were lost," recalled another ex-official. "Either they did not maintain a copy when they were produced, or they were destroyed in 9-11, but they were all gone," the source continued, adding: "I remember that 9-11 was the reason, but I can't remember more than that."
Michael PizziBut one source questioned the agents' failure "to secure them" and "analyze and detail them" before they left 26 Federal Plaza and responded to the WTC attack which was "more than a week" after they had obtained them. "That was sloppy," said this official.
Pizzi agreed with that assessment.
In his bid to help exonerate Spataro, Pizzi obtained a computer generated printout indicating that Spataro was in his autobody shop with an insurance adjuster at the time that prosecutors said he was driving Colombo mobster Vincent (Chickie) DeMartino, the convicted gunman in the shooting, to a rendezvous with another member of the hit team. Upon receiving the record, Pizzi made sure it was secure.
"When I finally received the Allstate records from the subpoena," said Pizzi, "I didn't wait to get to the office to open the envelope. I opened it in the car, and I marked the time I got it and the time I opened it on the envelope."
Vincent DeMartinoSources say the missing cell tower records included phones belonging to Spataro, as well as DeMartino, who was convicted at a separate trial along with Giovanni (John the Barber) Floridia. Floridia later cooperated and fingered Mikey Spat as a participant who drove Chickie to meet up with John the Barber four hours before the duo shot Colombo mobster Joseph (Joe Camp) Campanella at 2:30 on July 16, 2001.
In theory, the cell tower records could establish that Spataro and DeMartino — or at least their phones — were not near each other between 9:30 and 10:30 that morning, the time that Floridia testified that Mikey Spat drove Chickie to meet him.
DeStefano and Pontecorvo were case agents at both trials, and partners in the investigation into the 1999 murder of Colombo wiseguy William (Wild Bill) Cutolo. They got Cutolo's son to wear a wire and help them make a murder case against acting boss Alphonse (Allie) Persico, who was convicted and is serving a life sentence for ordering Wild Bill's murder.
Gang Land was unable to reach DeStefano for comment at home, or at T&M Protection Services LLC of Mahwah NJ, where he has been a Managing Director for six years, according to LinkedIn. Pontecorvo declined to comment.
Thomas SeigelSo did Thomas Seigel, who was a prosecutor for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office for eight years and who convicted DeMartino and Floridia of the rubout plot against Campanella at their 2004 trial, and then used Floridia as his key witness to convict Spataro of being a messenger in the failed rubout plot two years later.
Seigel who was head of the office's Organized Crime Unit when he retired in 2007 is now a fiction writer. He earned an MFA from Fairfield University and got nice reviews for his debut novel, The Astronaut's Son in 2019. He contacted Gang Land after we left a message with his publicist, but he declined to discuss the cases, telling us to contact the U.S. Attorney's office.
When we pressed him, the ex-prosecutor repeated, "All I can say is no comment. Call the U.S. Attorney's Office." As you might expect, the official spokesman, John Marzulli, said, "No comment."
Spataro's federal defender, Angela David, who is slated to argue next week that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the government's ability to convict defendants of federal weapons charges applies to Mikey Spat and that he should be resentenced to time served, also declined to talk to Gang Land about the case.
Spataro's current motion, an unusual second attempt to file a habeas corpus petition to vacate his conviction that was okayed by the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals, will likely be the last chance that Mikey Spat will have to upset his conviction and win his freedom in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Last week, on the same day that Judge DeArcy Hall scheduled the hearing for next week, she denied his motion for a compassionate release.
Member Of The Murderous Roy DeMeo Crew Seeks Compassion
Henry BorelliHenry Borelli, a member of the murderous Roy DeMeo crew who was sentenced in 1986 to 150 years in prison for his role in stealing 15 cars while working for the crew's deadly car-theft ring, wants a break.
Borelli, who is 72, says that the combination of the unduly harsh prison term he is serving — the longest in a mob case, 50 years longer than the sentences meted out in the historic Commission case — and his medical aliments, are "compelling and extraordinary reasons" why he deserves a compassionate release during the ongoing COVID pandemic.
Borelli writes that he is a legally blind, insulin dependent diabetic with chronic heart disease. He says he is in the same jeopardy as more than 200 federal prisoners who were also "at risk" and have already died from the coronavirus. The toll behind bars of Covid victims, he notes, is a much higher rate than members of the general public. As a result, he insists he should be granted a compassionate release.
As of Tuesday, 221 inmates and four staffers have died from COVID-19, records show. They include one fatality at the Glenville West Virginia prison where Borelli is confined. Two inmates and three staffers who work there are currently infected, while 293 inmates and 60 staffers have recovered from the deadly bug, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
Roy DeMeoThe aging gangster argues that Congress "had defendants like Henry Borelli in mind when they wrote, voted for and enacted the First Step Act" to provide relief to ailing inmates like him who are sentenced to 150 years for the non-violent crime of being part of a "conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines."
Borelli is correct about the facts of his sentence — the cars were actually shipped to Kuwait. But he was also originally found guilty of the murders of two used car dealers in a Brooklyn garage in 1979. Those convictions were later overturned for technical reasons. He was never prosecuted for several other murders because of the heavy prison term he received for the car thefts.
In imposing his record-setting sentence, the late Manhattan Federal Court Judge Kevin Duffy told Borelli: "You have been convicted of what is generally known as a contract killer."
Anthony SenterIn his handwritten pro se motion that was filed with Judge Loretta Preska, Borelli argues that his reasons for release compare favorably to "most of the cases" of the "more than 2000 inmates (who) have been granted compassionate release" since the First Step Act was passed in 2018.
"Few if any of those cases reflect instances of a defendant serving 37 years of his sentence," wrote Borelli, who has been behind bars since 1984 when he and 24 other members and associates of the DeMeo crew were hit with racketeering charges and committing 25 murders in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Judge Preska, who denied as improper a request for Borelli's release that his sister filed in 2016, ordered federal prosecutors, who are expected to object, to respond to Borelli's motion by March 1.
Iin our February 4 column about the death of FBI Agent Arthur Ruffels, who was an integral member of a task force that arrested and convicted many members of the DeMeo crew, Gang Land reported that mobsters Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter were found guilty of racketeering and 10 murders in a 1989 trial and sentenced to life plus 20 years.
Joseph TestaJust when the DeMeo gang trio is due for release, however, is confusing as the BOP has posted contradictory information over the years.
As late as 2016, Gang Land reported that life sentences meted out for pre-1987 crimes were capped at 30 years by the BOP. As a result, Testa and Senter had a better chance of surviving their prison terms than Borelli, since their release dates as calculated by the BOP were in 2032, when they'll be 77.
By contrast, in 2016, the BOP listed 2072 as Borelli's release date, when he'd be 123.
But the outlook has gotten worse for the three surviving DeMeo crew members, according to the BOP.
The BOP now states, for reasons only the BOP knows, that Borelli has 11 more years ahead of him than they stated in 2016, and lists a 2083 release date for him. And the BOP says Testa and Senter are each serving life sentences, which are a far cry from having a 2032 release date. The public information office of the BOP has been mum for several weeks now on the new math that it is now using to determine the release dates for these defendants.
Jerry CapeciCOVID-19 Vaccine Earns Gang Land A Compassionate Release
Late yesterday, while preparing an informative and intriguing third item for today's column, Gang Land was granted an emergency compassionate release from completing it and ordered to report a day early for its second COVID-19 vaccine shot due to the Winter Weather Advisory from the National Weather Service that went into effect at 4AM today until Friday at 7PM.
We'll be back with a full complement of real stuff about organized crime next week.
FBI Agents 'Lost' Cell Tower Records In Mikey Spat Case
Gang Land Exclusive!Michael SpataroThe conviction of Michael (Mikey Spat) Spataro for the failed rubout of a Colombo mobster who was shot and wounded as he left the beach in Coney Island in July of 2001 just took another curious turn.
Gang Land has learned that two months after the shooting, the FBI lost cell tower phone records of several suspects in the case. The records disappeared after two mob-busting G-men responded to the 9-11 terror attack on the World Trade Center.
The details are sketchy and confusing, but several former law enforcement officials have told Gang Land that the agents lost the printouts, which included cell tower records of Spataro's phone. According to the officials, the records could have cleared Mikey Spat of any role in the shooting, for which he was convicted in 2006, and sentenced to 24 years, a term that won't end until 2025.
It's unclear whether the startling information — which was confirmed by three former officials — will have an impact on the oral arguments that Brooklyn Federal Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall is slated to hear about his case next week. In a long-pending motion, Spataro is asking DeArcy Hall to dismiss a federal gun conviction that added 10 years to his prison term and reduce his sentence to "time served."
Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall"No matter what happens next week," said former U.S. Marshal Michael Pizzi, who has been investigating the case for Mikey Spat since 2010, "I think this is blockbuster information that should have been disclosed to Spataro's lawyers, but never was, as far as I have been able to determine." Pizzi, as Gang Land has previously reported, maintains that Spataro, a longtime mob associate, was wrongly convicted of being part of the attempted murder plot.
Cell tower records cannot place a suspect at the scene of a crime, but they can determine whether a person was in close proximity to the location. They can also be used to confirm other evidence, and can suggest that a suspect was too far away from a crime scene to have been involved. Cops and FBI agents routinely subpoena cell tower records of phones of potential suspects in numerous cases.
The records can also be so-called Brady Material that tends to exonerate a suspect and must be turned over to the defense. Since October, in the wake of so many rulings chiding prosecutors for failing to adhere to the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brady v. Maryland, federal judges have been informing prosecutors of their "Brady obligations" in the first court session of all criminal cases.
James DeStefanoNone of the former officials who told Gang Land that James DeStefano and Gary Pontecorvo, the since-retired agents who obtained the records in August of 2001 of phones used by Spataro and other suspects in the shooting had intentionally discarded the records for improper reasons.
"There was never any intent of wrongdoing," said one, who like the others who confirmed the lost records, spoke only after being granted anonymity. "They didn't lose them on purpose. They tried to get them again, but they were unable to retrieve them," the ex-official said, explaining that there was a six-month window to get the records.
That time frame was essentially confirmed by several current and former prosecutors, although some noted that some companies retained cell phone records much longer — up to 18 months — while others kept then as little as three months.
"They had gotten the hard copies, but they were lost," recalled another ex-official. "Either they did not maintain a copy when they were produced, or they were destroyed in 9-11, but they were all gone," the source continued, adding: "I remember that 9-11 was the reason, but I can't remember more than that."
Michael PizziBut one source questioned the agents' failure "to secure them" and "analyze and detail them" before they left 26 Federal Plaza and responded to the WTC attack which was "more than a week" after they had obtained them. "That was sloppy," said this official.
Pizzi agreed with that assessment.
In his bid to help exonerate Spataro, Pizzi obtained a computer generated printout indicating that Spataro was in his autobody shop with an insurance adjuster at the time that prosecutors said he was driving Colombo mobster Vincent (Chickie) DeMartino, the convicted gunman in the shooting, to a rendezvous with another member of the hit team. Upon receiving the record, Pizzi made sure it was secure.
"When I finally received the Allstate records from the subpoena," said Pizzi, "I didn't wait to get to the office to open the envelope. I opened it in the car, and I marked the time I got it and the time I opened it on the envelope."
Vincent DeMartinoSources say the missing cell tower records included phones belonging to Spataro, as well as DeMartino, who was convicted at a separate trial along with Giovanni (John the Barber) Floridia. Floridia later cooperated and fingered Mikey Spat as a participant who drove Chickie to meet up with John the Barber four hours before the duo shot Colombo mobster Joseph (Joe Camp) Campanella at 2:30 on July 16, 2001.
In theory, the cell tower records could establish that Spataro and DeMartino — or at least their phones — were not near each other between 9:30 and 10:30 that morning, the time that Floridia testified that Mikey Spat drove Chickie to meet him.
DeStefano and Pontecorvo were case agents at both trials, and partners in the investigation into the 1999 murder of Colombo wiseguy William (Wild Bill) Cutolo. They got Cutolo's son to wear a wire and help them make a murder case against acting boss Alphonse (Allie) Persico, who was convicted and is serving a life sentence for ordering Wild Bill's murder.
Gang Land was unable to reach DeStefano for comment at home, or at T&M Protection Services LLC of Mahwah NJ, where he has been a Managing Director for six years, according to LinkedIn. Pontecorvo declined to comment.
Thomas SeigelSo did Thomas Seigel, who was a prosecutor for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office for eight years and who convicted DeMartino and Floridia of the rubout plot against Campanella at their 2004 trial, and then used Floridia as his key witness to convict Spataro of being a messenger in the failed rubout plot two years later.
Seigel who was head of the office's Organized Crime Unit when he retired in 2007 is now a fiction writer. He earned an MFA from Fairfield University and got nice reviews for his debut novel, The Astronaut's Son in 2019. He contacted Gang Land after we left a message with his publicist, but he declined to discuss the cases, telling us to contact the U.S. Attorney's office.
When we pressed him, the ex-prosecutor repeated, "All I can say is no comment. Call the U.S. Attorney's Office." As you might expect, the official spokesman, John Marzulli, said, "No comment."
Spataro's federal defender, Angela David, who is slated to argue next week that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the government's ability to convict defendants of federal weapons charges applies to Mikey Spat and that he should be resentenced to time served, also declined to talk to Gang Land about the case.
Spataro's current motion, an unusual second attempt to file a habeas corpus petition to vacate his conviction that was okayed by the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals, will likely be the last chance that Mikey Spat will have to upset his conviction and win his freedom in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Last week, on the same day that Judge DeArcy Hall scheduled the hearing for next week, she denied his motion for a compassionate release.
Member Of The Murderous Roy DeMeo Crew Seeks Compassion
Henry BorelliHenry Borelli, a member of the murderous Roy DeMeo crew who was sentenced in 1986 to 150 years in prison for his role in stealing 15 cars while working for the crew's deadly car-theft ring, wants a break.
Borelli, who is 72, says that the combination of the unduly harsh prison term he is serving — the longest in a mob case, 50 years longer than the sentences meted out in the historic Commission case — and his medical aliments, are "compelling and extraordinary reasons" why he deserves a compassionate release during the ongoing COVID pandemic.
Borelli writes that he is a legally blind, insulin dependent diabetic with chronic heart disease. He says he is in the same jeopardy as more than 200 federal prisoners who were also "at risk" and have already died from the coronavirus. The toll behind bars of Covid victims, he notes, is a much higher rate than members of the general public. As a result, he insists he should be granted a compassionate release.
As of Tuesday, 221 inmates and four staffers have died from COVID-19, records show. They include one fatality at the Glenville West Virginia prison where Borelli is confined. Two inmates and three staffers who work there are currently infected, while 293 inmates and 60 staffers have recovered from the deadly bug, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
Roy DeMeoThe aging gangster argues that Congress "had defendants like Henry Borelli in mind when they wrote, voted for and enacted the First Step Act" to provide relief to ailing inmates like him who are sentenced to 150 years for the non-violent crime of being part of a "conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines."
Borelli is correct about the facts of his sentence — the cars were actually shipped to Kuwait. But he was also originally found guilty of the murders of two used car dealers in a Brooklyn garage in 1979. Those convictions were later overturned for technical reasons. He was never prosecuted for several other murders because of the heavy prison term he received for the car thefts.
In imposing his record-setting sentence, the late Manhattan Federal Court Judge Kevin Duffy told Borelli: "You have been convicted of what is generally known as a contract killer."
Anthony SenterIn his handwritten pro se motion that was filed with Judge Loretta Preska, Borelli argues that his reasons for release compare favorably to "most of the cases" of the "more than 2000 inmates (who) have been granted compassionate release" since the First Step Act was passed in 2018.
"Few if any of those cases reflect instances of a defendant serving 37 years of his sentence," wrote Borelli, who has been behind bars since 1984 when he and 24 other members and associates of the DeMeo crew were hit with racketeering charges and committing 25 murders in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Judge Preska, who denied as improper a request for Borelli's release that his sister filed in 2016, ordered federal prosecutors, who are expected to object, to respond to Borelli's motion by March 1.
Iin our February 4 column about the death of FBI Agent Arthur Ruffels, who was an integral member of a task force that arrested and convicted many members of the DeMeo crew, Gang Land reported that mobsters Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter were found guilty of racketeering and 10 murders in a 1989 trial and sentenced to life plus 20 years.
Joseph TestaJust when the DeMeo gang trio is due for release, however, is confusing as the BOP has posted contradictory information over the years.
As late as 2016, Gang Land reported that life sentences meted out for pre-1987 crimes were capped at 30 years by the BOP. As a result, Testa and Senter had a better chance of surviving their prison terms than Borelli, since their release dates as calculated by the BOP were in 2032, when they'll be 77.
By contrast, in 2016, the BOP listed 2072 as Borelli's release date, when he'd be 123.
But the outlook has gotten worse for the three surviving DeMeo crew members, according to the BOP.
The BOP now states, for reasons only the BOP knows, that Borelli has 11 more years ahead of him than they stated in 2016, and lists a 2083 release date for him. And the BOP says Testa and Senter are each serving life sentences, which are a far cry from having a 2032 release date. The public information office of the BOP has been mum for several weeks now on the new math that it is now using to determine the release dates for these defendants.
Jerry CapeciCOVID-19 Vaccine Earns Gang Land A Compassionate Release
Late yesterday, while preparing an informative and intriguing third item for today's column, Gang Land was granted an emergency compassionate release from completing it and ordered to report a day early for its second COVID-19 vaccine shot due to the Winter Weather Advisory from the National Weather Service that went into effect at 4AM today until Friday at 7PM.
We'll be back with a full complement of real stuff about organized crime next week.