GL NEWS 7/9/2020

[Bklyn21]

This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Two Alleged Sopranos-Like Assaults By Jealous Ex-Hubby Of Former Reality TV Star Now Playing In Two New Jersey Courthouses
Gang Land Exclusive!Thomas ManzoWhat happens when you cross Real Housewives of New Jersey with The Sopranos? To find out, take a look at how a pair of pending criminal cases are playing out in two different New Jersey courthouses where the long-running reel-life episodes of the messy and violent private lives of mob-tied figures are under scrutiny.

In federal and state courts in the Garden State, Thomas Manzo, the ex-husband of former Real Housewives of New Jersey star Dina Manzo, has been tagged with charges that he had the Luchese family carry out two separate assaults against his ex-wife's current husband.

The feds arrested Thomas Manzo last week and charged him with enlisting a Luchese soldier to assault Dina Manzo's then-boyfriend, David Cantin, in 2015. Prosecutors allege that Manzo, a Paterson, NJ banquet hall owner, hired Luchese wiseguy John Perna to carry out the assault. Manzo is also accused of obstructing justice by falsifying invoices for Perna's alleged payoff for the assault, a "free or discounted" wedding reception.

Gang Land has also learned that, in a separate incident two years later, Thomas Manzo is believed to have hired an assailant who punched Manzo in the face and ripped her engagement ring off her finger during a home invasion robbery.

Dina ManzoThat attack occurred in May, 2017, when the jealous ex-hubby allegedly orchestrated an alleged baseball bat assault against Dina's new fiancé that was carried out in the couple's new home by a longtime family associate named James (Jimmy Balls) Mainello, law enforcement sources tell Gang Land.

Mainello, 52, is the star of the second court case scheduled for trial on charges of robbery and assault later this year in Monmouth County Superior Court. Mainello has been held without bail since his arrest last year. Sources say that Manzo was recently tagged as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment against Mainello.

According to the federal racketeering indictment, in July of 2015, Perna attacked Cantin with a slapjack in a Passaic County strip mall "with the intent to inflict serious permanent injury" to his victim because Manzo wanted the "violent assault" to leave Cantin with "a permanent facial scar."

John PernaSources say Manzo was very satisfied with Perna's work. The sources say that after the assault, Manzo agreed to raise the guest list from 270 to 330 for the mobster's August 16, 2015 wedding reception at The Brownstone, a huge banquet hall in Paterson that is owned and operated by Manzo and his brother Albert.

Sources say the reception was a gala affair that was attended by scores of mobsters from New Jersey, Philadelphia and New York that included what one source described as a "who's who of the Luchese crime family." The guests included then-acting boss Matthew (Matty) Madonna and the FBI's most recent turncoat wiseguy, John Pennisi.

Pennisi, who flipped in 2018 and has testified at three New York trials, including the White Plains trial of Madonna and four other Luchese gangsters who were convicted of the murder of former Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish, is expected to testify about the wedding and his dealings with Perna when the case goes to trial.

Matthew MadonnaManzo, 57, and Perna, 43, were each released on $100,000 bail last week after they pleaded not guilty before Newark Federal Judge Cathy Waldor.

Manzo's bail restrictions are minimal. But Waldor agreed with arguments by veteran assistant U.S. attorney Grady O'Malley that Perna was a dangerous felon who should be confined to his home except for "medical necessities or court appearances." The judge ordered Perna to pay for the cost of electronic monitoring to assure that he didn't violate his house arrest restrictions.

Waldor also ordered Perna to steer clear of all gambling, including lotto and internet wagering, and to abide by the conditions of his state parole, which still has two years remaining. Perna, as well as his mobster brother Joseph, and their father Ralph, a family capo, pleaded guilty to state racketeering charges in June, 2015, a month before John allegedly assaulted Cantin.

Sources say FBI agents recovered a videotape of the assault by Perna, and a unidentified crony identified in the indictment as Accomplice-1, who is believed to be cooperating, that took place in the parking lot in front of Buddy's Small Lots, a discount store in Totowa on July 18, 2015.

John PennisiPerna is also charged with insurance fraud for faking the theft of his Mercedes Benz six months after the assault. Perna pulled that off, according to the indictment, again with help from Accomplice-1, who drove the car to Newark and torched it on January 2, 2016, five days before Perna began a 42-month stretch for his state racketeering plea deal.

Perna didn't have use of his Benz for his last days of freedom in 2016, but the upside was that he didn't have to pay the $17,816 in car payments. His insurance company covered the debt.

A year later, while Perna was cooling his heels behind bars, Manzo had to look elsewhere for his mob muscle when he allegedly became incensed when Dina announced her engagement to Cantin.

"Tommy was hot to trot," said one source with insight about the two cases. "He needed someone to do some work for him and he knew where to look."

Grady O'MalleySources say Manzo had little trouble recruiting Jimmy Balls Mainello for the job. The sources say The Brownstone is a favored location for the New Jersey wing of the Luchese family. The Manzo brothers inherited the catering hall after their father, mob associate Albert (Tiny) Manzo, was shot to death in a still unsolved gangland-style slaying in 1983.

Jimmy Balls, who has several armed robbery convictions on his rap sheet, was officially tabbed as a Luchese gangster with a penchant for home invasion work back in 2004. That's when the FBI overheard him and another Luchese associate, who lived on the same street as a Long Island businessman, planning to rob "a half million plus, maybe a million" from their intended victim who kept "large sums of cash" at his home.

Mainello and his cronies in that caper were snared before they could carry out that home invasion 15 years ago. But Jimmy Balls and an unidentified cohort were able to get the job done against Dina Manzo and Cantin when they returned home after attending the First Holy Communion of Dina's goddaughter on May 13, 2017, according to court filings in the case.

Caitlin SidleyAs soon as they entered their townhouse, "an unknown suspect charged at (Cantin) from the living room area and attacked him with a baseball bat," striking him "in the leg, knee, arm, face and back with the bat," according to the arrest complaint by Holmdel detective Eric Hernando.

Cantin quickly realized there were two masked assailants in their home when "he saw a second suspect" push Dina "against a wall" and "cover her mouth before throwing her to the floor and kicking her," Hernando wrote. Dina's assailant then took her "engagement ring off her finger" and said: "That's what you get for fucking with a guy from Paterson."

"The attackers' faces were covered with bandanas and they were wearing hats," Hernado wrote, and neither victim was able to identify them, but Cantin "was, however, able to describe the attacker with the baseball bat as approximately 5'11" tall with a thin to medium build."

James MainelloAfter the assailants "struck Cantin several times with a baseball bat" and punched Manzo "multiple times," they zip-tied the couple together and fled, according to a spokesman for Monmouth County prosecutor Caitlin Sidley, who declined to discuss Thomas Manzo's alleged involvement in the case, or provide any other information about the prosecution.

Detectives zeroed in on Mainello in August of 2018 when his DNA was found on a zip tie that had been discarded by the assailants. He was arrested, according to court filings, after cell phone records placed him in Holmdel before and after the robbery and he was spotted going through a nearby toll on the Garden State Parkway about 25 minutes after the robbers escaped.

Mainello's lawyers contend the robbery "did not happen or certainly did not happen the way the victims claim it did." In court filings, attorney Marco Laracca wrote that "the ring in question" was purchased for $34,900 and "was appraised at $48,900, not $60,000" as the arrest complaint states, and argued that Cantin's injuries "are not consistent" with his account of the assault.

Marco LaraccaThe lawyer also wrote that medical records - and Mainello's height - establish his client did not hit Cantin with a bat. Laracca wroted that based on the photos and hospital records about Cantin's injuries, Dr. Peter DiPaolo, an orthopedic surgeon hired by the defense, stated: "it is highly unlikely that the statement given by Mr. Cantin is accurate with respect to having been struck by a baseball bat 'in the leg, knee, arm, back and face' and 'They kept hitting (him) with the bat over and over.'"

Since Cantin, who is 5'11" described his baseball bat wielding assailant as about the same height as himself, Laracca says there's no way that could have been his client, who is 6'3'-to-6'4".

"A short guy who's five-two, or five-three, can mistake a guy who's six-three or six-four for being five-eleven," said Laracca. "But there's no way that a guy who's five-eleven can mistake a guy who's six-three or six-four for being five-eleven," the lawyer said. "Maybe he got hit with a baseball bat," Laracca said, "but Mr. Mainello wasn't swinging it."

Marty Geduldig; Defense Lawyer, Mentor, All American 'Good Guy,' RIP
Martin GeduldigMartin Geduldig, who was an indefatigable, hard-working defense attorney whether his client of the moment was a mafia boss, a low level mob associate or an immigrant from a third-world country during the 53 years that he toiled in New York's state and federal courts, cashed in his chips last month.

Geduldig, who was 78, mentored several young lawyers during his long career, including John Meringolo, who told Gang Land that Geduldig was "able to take a case on short notice and be as effective as anyone could be because he was great on his feet in the courtroom."

"Marty and I tried seven cases together over the years," said Meringolo, a Gang Land award winning defense lawyer. "The most important thing I learned from Marty was to go with my instincts," said Meringolo, adding that in addition to teaching him how to try a case, "Marty was a great guy who became a very good friend of mine over the years."

Vittorio AmusoJanet Geduldig, the lawyer's wife of 46 years, told Gang Land she was heartened to have received "so many calls from so many people who liked Marty and said he was a good guy" when they learned about his death. "It makes me feel so good," she said.

"He was working right to the end," Mrs. Geduldig continued. "He died in his sleep. I was awakened by it. I gave him mouth to mouth, and CPR but he was gone. It was very sad. His time had come. But he died peacefully. I'm at peace with that. He was never in any pain. He went the way he wanted. He was never sick. The only pills he ever took were vitamins."

Over the years, Gang Land has written about several defendants who were ably represented by Geduldig, including Luchese family boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, Gambino wiseguy Gregory DePalma, and mob associate Edmund (Eddie) Boyle.

Joachin GarciaWhile doing research for Mob Boss, the book that Tom Robbins and I wrote about Alfonso (Little Al) D'Arco, Gang Land contacted Geduldig about the circumstances of Amuso's arrest back in 1991 after more than a year on the lam. To tweak him about the lawyer's trials and tribulations as Amuso's lawyer — and in an effort to get his goat — Gang Land noted that the Mafia boss had dumped him and hired Gerald Shargel to represent him at trial.

Without any hesitation, Geduldig said, "You got to be kidding, Jerry was a superstar. I might have done the same thing if I was in his shoes." He then laughed and said, "as it turned out, though, I couldn't have done any worse, and Vic could have saved a lot of money."

At trial, DePalma, who was taped in many incriminating talks, was found guilty as expected. But Geduldig did manage to get the government to change its tune and order FBI undercover agent Joachin (Big Jack) Garcia to testify using his real name when he told the feds and the judge that he knew the Cuban-born agent's name and was going to question him about it.

Edmund BoyleLike all good lawyers, Geduldig forced himself to put his courtroom defeats behind him. But he told Gang Land he was unable to do that when it came to trials he had handled for Eddie Boyle — in 2005, and again in 2010. Both times, Boyle was convicted and sentenced for the same bank burglaries he'd pleaded guilty to and for which he'd been sentenced in state court. And each time Boyle was also sentenced for crimes for which jurors stated he was "Not guilty."

As Gang Land wrote on June 25, Boyle, who's not slated to be released until New Year's Eve of 2029, won a small victory last month from the first judge who hammered him with heavy acquitted conduct time, but Marty Geduldig never learned about it.

He died in his sleep on June 24.

In addition to his wife Janet, Geduldig is survived by a son, Sam; daughters Karen and Amy; four grandchildren, Max, Madelyn, Katherine, and Jane, and his brother Arthur, who asked their friends to "consider a donation to The Innocence Project" in his name.

Somebody Up There Likes Vincent Fyfe
Vincent FyfeVincent Fyfe, the turncoat grandson of the late Vincent (Chin) Gigante was a prized cooperating witness. His stint on the witness stand earned him some nasty Bronx cheers from two of Gigante's daughters who called him "a piece of shit" in open court. But unlike other prized cooperators, like Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano, who fingered his Mafia boss, or even Michael Cohen, who gave up some info about his pal the President, we still don't know the crimes to which Fyfe pleaded guilty.

Now that the eight-year-long federal case against Gigante's son, Vincent Esposito, has ended, you'd think that those charges against Fyfe, the corrupt union boss who triggered the probe against Esposito, would be unsealed by now. Especially since the government said six months ago that they should be unsealed. Wrong!

Unlike Gravano, Cohen, and scores of other so-called cooperating witnesses, the charges that Fyfe pleaded guilty to are still sealed more than eight months after they should have been made public, even according to the sweet cooperation deal Fyfe got from the feds when the FBI caught him stealing from dues-paying workers in his 1600 member union.

Frank GiovincoAnd the peoples' lawyers in the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, as well as the Manhattan Federal Court Judges who are supposed to oversee the public's First Amendment and common law rights for access to all criminal cases, seem like they don't give a damn about that.

At the labor racketeering trial in November of Frank (Frankie G) Giovinco, the only defendant to go to trial in the case, prosecutors disclosed that Fyfe's agreement with the government called for his corrupt activities to remain secret only until there were "public proceedings" about his illegal activity in connection with the Esposito case.

That enabled Fyfe, who had pleaded guilty to crimes that between 2005 and 2011, to keep his $300,000 a year job as president of Local 2D of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union for more than seven years, even though as a labor racketeer, he was barred from holding any union job — let alone one as a union president.

But after Fyfe testified in late November, despite stories about Fyfe's testimony about his corrupt activities in Gang Land, The Daily News and The New York Post, Fyfe kept his job as Local 2D president until March. That's when the UFCW ousted him and appointed an international vice president as a trustee to serve temporarily as an interim president.

Judge Paul CrottyBut through it all, the specific charges against Fyfe, who pleaded guilty before Manhattan Federal Judge Paul Crotty to three labor racketeering crimes carrying a maximum prison term of 11 years in prison, remain sealed. The only explanation is an unexplained ruling by Crotty that the charges "will be disclosed after Fyfe is sentenced; but not before that time."

Crotty issued that brief, handwritten ruling on January 23, several weeks after prosecutors, in response to a Gang Land request to unseal the Fyfe case, informed the judge that the government consented to the unsealing of the Fyfe case, as well as the "public filing" of the government's position.

Four days later, Gang Land filed a four-page motion, urging Crotty to reconsider his ruling because his decision failed "to provide any factual or legal basis to overcome the public's presumptive right to inspect and copy all public records and documents relating to the charges against Fyfe prior to his sentencing," as he was required to in order to keep the case sealed.

Judge Jed RakoffIn addition, Gang Land argued that Crotty's ruling did "not explain how the unsealing of each of the requested documents would in any way be harmful to Fyfe," or why the case should remain sealed since there had been "no showing of any extraordinary or compelling interest that would trump the common law and First Amendment rights" of the public to have access to the entire court file.

The judge ignored that motion until June 23. That day Crotty issued a one word denial and had his courtroom deputy inform Gang Land that the case had been transferred to Judge Jed Rakoff, who sentenced Giovinco to four years behind bars on June 22. The case is still sealed the case, and Judge Rakoff has not issued any ruling or explanation for not doing so.

When Gang Land contacted Rakoff's chambers about that yesterday, we were told to write a letter and mail it to his chambers

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting

[pharion]

Thanks for posting

Thanks Johnny

[mlm0047]

Was Manzo a made man ?

[Rocco]

Was Manzo a made man ?

Big Ange's Uncle Clipped him for robbing his casino.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks Bklyn.

Surprised we haven’t had more COVID deaths by this stage.

[Bklyn21]

Thanks Bklyn.

Surprised we haven’t had more COVID deaths by this stage.

...Thanks to JohnnyS for the pics