Gangland News 07/16/20

[JohnnyS]

Discredited Mob Snitch To Spill His Guts On YouTube After Getting A Sweet 'Time Served' Sentence
Frank Pasqua III was pretty much a wash out. The now discredited mob turncoat initially wrongly implicated his father in the gangland-style slaying of former Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish. Then his cooperation agreement was breached when he was jailed after the admitted drug dealer was caught selling drugs all over again last year. But none of those foul ups seem to matter much when it came to his sentence: Pasqua has been rewarded with a sweet "time served" sentence of less than three years, Gang Land has learned.

Sources say that the 40-year-old mob associate, who pleaded guilty to murder conspiracy, racketeering and trafficking in heroin and oxycodone in Mississippi and New York, was quietly released from an undisclosed facility several months ago. The sentencing was carried out without any notice to the public, or his victims, who include an estranged wife and former girlfriend.

And once back in the free world, Pasqua quickly found a sympathetic ear. He hooked up with another controversial government snitch, Gene Borrello, for a videotaped talk. The duo bragged about a slew of violent crimes that they committed together, both in and out of prison, including a failed 2011 mob hit in the Bronx. Pasqua's public unveiling is slated to be aired soon on the Johnny And Gene Show, a YouTube event that is hosted by turncoat Gambino gangster John Alite and Borrello, the Bonanno turncoat associate from Howard Beach.

Pasqua and Borrello, 35, met and became best buds in June and July of 2008, while both were at the Groveland Correctional Facility about 50 miles south of Rochester. That info is based on Borrello's account that aired on June 19 detailing how he and his "good friend Frankie Pasqua" punched out and sliced the face of another inmate during a discussion with Alite about prison violence.

"Long story short, I punch him in his face, my friend Frankie cuts his face open, we start beating him, and we run and get away," said Borrello, smiling as he described his fellow snitch as "good people" because he took the weight for the assault. On the video, Borrello recalled his pal's response to prison officials: "I did it. Gino had nothing to do with it," Pasqua said, according to Borrello. Meeting his buddy Frankie, Borrello says, "was one of the great things I did in jail."

Three years later, the year Pasqua maxed out, sources say, the duo, armed with silencer-equipped pistols, staked out the Bronx home of a bookie from the Bronx named Vincent (Vinny Limo) Zarcone. The pair spent days in a stolen car waiting for him to come out of his home so they could whack him for Frankie's "uncle Patty," a Genovese associate named Patrick Lombardo.

Pasqua, who made what prosecutors called an "honest mistake" when he fingered his Luchese mobster old man for the Meldish killing in 2015, agreed to do "a piece of work" in 2011 because he wanted to get away from his mobster father back then. That's according to sources who are familiar with the videotaped talk Borrello and Pasqua had while reminiscing about their bad old gangster days before they became good guys and started working for their Uncle Sam.

Lombardo wanted to whack Zarcone, said one source familiar with the Borrello-Pasqua account, "because Vinny Limo had gotten a biker friend to shoot up Patty Lombardo" over an ongoing feud that was raging between them, and "Frankie was hoping that killing Vinny Limo would get him a button with the Genovese family."

But for two long days and nights, the sources say, as the masked assassins waited outside his home, Vinny Limo never left his house, and Borrello and Pasqua couldn't get the job done.

Cooler heads eventually prevailed, the sources say. Lombardo, who had been hiding out in North Carolina, was called back to New York, and the feud was resolved in a mob sitdown.

Gang Land was unable to reach Patty Lombardo or Vinny Limo about Borrello and Pasqua's videotaped story about them. But it turns out that Lombardo, 59, who served 20 years for a 1984 murder, and Zarcone, 53, who was busted for illegal gambling in 2005, are real people. And they've been involved in a couple stories that could easily have served as scripts for The Sopranos.

In 2009, Zarcone was in an Italian American social club in New Rochelle when an angry contractor named Christopher Calise attacked him with a meat cleaver, allegedly over an overdue $35,000 debt, and nearly severed his right hand. Calise, 44, at the time was sentenced to 15 years.

Also in 2009, after Lombardo was arrested for beating a hotdog vendor with a hammer and torching his van for refusing to pay him protection money, he wore a wire against the poor hot dog guy and taped him offering to drop the charges "for $5000 now and $10,000 next Tuesday."

Exactly how Borrello, who was given three years of post-prison supervised release last year, can meet up with Alite, Pasqua, and other ex-cons who have appeared on the Johnny And Gene Show without violating his supervised release was the secondary response of wiseguy lawyers when they were told about Pasqua's time-served sentence and his appearance on the mob show.

Borrello's attorney and the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office declined to talk to Gang Land about that.

Shock and outrage was the unanimous initial reaction of several lawyers and a prosecutor who were informed about the lenient sentence for Pasqua, especially since he had pleaded guilty to being part of a Luchese family conspiracy to kill Meldish but wasn't used as a witness because he was caught dealing drugs and in possession of a gun after he began cooperating.

"It's a disgrace," said John Meringolo, the attorney for wiseguy Christopher Londonio, who agreed to take a government offer of 30 years but was forced to go to trial because the offer called for all four defendants to plead guilty. "It sends a terrible message: You can cooperate with the government and continue to commit crimes, and there's no repercussions whatsoever."

"It's stunning, really unbelievable," said another lawyer, who wondered whether Pasqua had been released from prison to await sentencing due to COVID-19 pandemic concerns.

"How could he get such a sweet deal when he violated his agreement and wasn't called at the trial," muttered the perplexed attorney when told that two reliable sources had confirmed Pasqua's star turn in the upcoming video.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office and Pasqua's attorney won't talk about the publicly filed indictment against Pasqua, or the nine sealed docket entries going back to August of 2017 in the case that is assigned to White Plains Federal Judge Nelson Roman that was officially closed on March 13, 2020.

As Gang Land reported two years ago, Pasqua was arrested by the DEA and cops in Madison, Mississippi, who were tipped off that he was delivering drugs to a customer and caught him with assorted drug paraphernalia in his car and 17 packs of heroin on him when they pulled him over on March 2, 2015.

After he contacted the feds and told them he was part of a Luchese family plot to whack Meldish, he agreed to cooperate and got Londonio to admit dealing drugs and other crimes but never got him, or anyone else, to own up to any involvement in the murder plot.

In the end, prosecutors decided that Pasqua would be a liability as a government witness and opted not to use him, and they convicted Londonio, acting boss Matthew Madonna, underboss Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea, and associate Terrence Caldwell of the Meldish murder without him. They are all slated to be sentenced to mandatory life prison terms later this month.

It May Not Have Been A Crime, But John Perna Got A Free Ride On His Wedding Day
His indictment alleges that after slapping around a boyfriend of former reality TV star Dina Manzo as a favor to her ex, Luchese soldier John Perna got a "free or discounted" wedding reception for his services at an elegant New Jersey catering hall. But from Perna's standpoint, the wedding party wasn't discounted. It was absolutely free, Gang Land has learned.

The wedding bash, which was held a month after Perna, 43, allegedly assaulted boyfriend David Cantin with a "slapjack" at a strip mall in Totowa, wasn't a gift, according to the feds. It was a payoff for the attack from Manzo's ex-husband, Thomas Manzo, whose family-owned establishment, The Brownstone, hosted Perna's 2015 wedding reception.

Sources say Manzo was very satisfied with the way Perna carried out his end of the deal and agreed to raise the guest list for Perna's wedding from 270 to 330 at the catering hall he owns and operates with his brother Albert.

John Perna Wedding PhotoIn addition to Perna's brother Joseph, and their father Ralph, who can be seen in this family wedding photo along with his bride and other relatives, the reception was attended by scores of area wiseguys, including then acting family boss Matthew (Matty) Madonna and soldier John Pennisi, who flipped in 2018 and has told the feds about the affair.

According to evidence that FBI agents obtained about the gala affair, Perna didn't pay anything for his wedding reception at The Brownstone banquet hall in Paterson, NJ on August 16, 2015.

Sources say that during a court-authorized search of the catering hall, agents obtained records indicating that an elderly Wayne, New Jersey business man had given The Brownstone a total of $24,000 to book the wedding — $8000 in cash and $16,000 on credit cards — and that was the total amount that the catering hall was paid for the reception.

By conservative estimate, a 330-guest wedding at The Brownstone would cost around $175,000. So if anyone received a "discount," it was the businessman, whose name is being withheld because he is not charged with any wrongdoing.

Sources say the records seized during the search warrant are the basis for an obstruction of justice count that charges Manzo, 57, with making "false entries" regarding "the invoice pertaining to the wedding reception of defendant John Perna" in an attempt to "impede, obstruct, and influence" an FBI investigation.

In order to link the assault with the bogus invoice rap, the feds will need either testimony from a witness or some other strong evidence. But in the meantime, prosecutors are building a case around the theory that the wedding day freebie was a rich reward for a vicious assault.

Last week, after both defendants were released on $100,000 bond, Newark Federal Court Judge Kevin McNulty adjourned the case until September 1 to give the defense lawyers time to investigate the charges and engage in "plea negotiations" with the government after the defendants agreed to waive speedy trial provisions that would require a trial within 70 days.

As Gang Land disclosed last week, Manzo was recently named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the May, 2017 baseball bat assault of Cantin and the robbery of Dina Manzo in a home invasion that was allegedly carried out by longtime Luchese family associate James (Jimmy Balls) Mainello, 52.

In that case, Mainello, who has been held without bail since his arrest last year, is scheduled for trial later this year in Monmouth County Superior Court on charges of robbery and assault.

After Two Not-So-Happy Extra Months Of Freedom, Baldy Mike Going Back To Prison Soon
Michael (Baldy Mike) Spinelli, the Luchese mobster who was disappointed to learn that his release from prison after nearly 28 years turned out to be only a one-month furlough, has received two month-long extensions of time he spent at his sister's home. Both are thanks to the perilous threat of COVID-19 which, despite his best efforts to avoid the virus, Spinelli recently contracted.

Brooklyn Federal Judge Raymond Dearie granted the first month delay when Bureau of Prison officials rejected his request to assign Spinelli to a nearby prison or a medical facility in the Northeast, ruling that since Baldy Mike had been transferred to New York from his Beaumont Texas prison, he had to be returned there.

Since airline travel in June was seen as risky business during the COVID-19 pandemic despite President Trump's opinion about its dangers, Dearie agreed with a defense request to postpone Spinelli's return until July 3 because the CDC was advising against air travel for elderly "high-risk individuals with pre-existing conditions" like Baldy Mike.

But Spinelli, who had remained at his sister's home except for doctor's visits, and had no recognizable coronavirus symptoms, learned on June 24 when he arrived at his doctor's office to undergo a scheduled colonoscopy that he had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus two days earlier.

His doctors decided to go ahead with the procedure, but since the New York Health Department advised Spinelli to self-quarantine for 14 days, Judge Dearie postponed his surrender date until July 31. He also ordered Spinelli to be tested for the virus every two weeks using June 22 as a start date, and to submit the results of each test to the Court.

Spinelli, who had been sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison for the attempted ambush murder of an innocent mother of three in one of the low points in the history of the American Mafia, had been released on bail to await a resentencing in the case back in May.

Spinelli's main argument for winning his freedom has been that he changed his ways since discovering yoga a decade ago. He also had impressed his jailers as a viable candidate for release.

After an hour-long, static-filled telephone proceeding, at which defense attorneys had sought a time-served sentence for Baldy Mike, Dearie cut only two years off his original term.

After acknowledging that he is "not a big fan in many cases of lengthy prison sentences," the judge declared: "This case is certainly one of them that calls for significant punishment."

Spinelli, 66, still has six more years left to serve for gunning down Patricia Capozzalo in front of her Brooklyn home on March 10, 1992.

[JohnnyS]

[RI_Guy]

Also in 2009, after Lombardo was arrested for beating a hotdog vendor with a hammer and torching his van for refusing to pay him protection money, he wore a wire against the poor hot dog guy and taped him offering to drop the charges "for $5000 now and $10,000 next Tuesday."

Hahaha this is fuckin hilarious. Thanks for posting

[SonnyBlackstein]

thanks for the posts gents.

Ridiculous Pasqua getting time served. What did he contribute except lies and further criminality post his deal?

Joseph looks like a 12yr old boy.

[mlm0047]

Is it me or do others get the feeling Capeci is against scumbag informants? Specifically Alite / gene / pasqua

[TwoPiece]

Joseph looks like a 12yr old boy.

that probably is a 12 yr old kid. joseph perna is the one with the bowtie on kinda behind the bride. he's actually the older of the two brothers.

[TwoPiece]

hell of a discount on that reception for one good beating, excellent days work

[SonnyBlackstein]

hell of a discount on that reception for one good beating, excellent days work

I thought the same. $150k for a beating? Jeezus.

Joseph looks like a 12yr old boy.

that probably is a 12 yr old kid. joseph perna is the one with the bowtie on kinda behind the bride. he's actually the older of the two brothers.

Ha. Makes more sense.

[AntComello]

Also in 2009, after Lombardo was arrested for beating a hotdog vendor with a hammer and torching his van for refusing to pay him protection money, he wore a wire against the poor hot dog guy and taped him offering to drop the charges "for $5000 now and $10,000 next Tuesday."

Hahaha this is fuckin hilarious. Thanks for posting

So is this considered ratting? Lol

[JeremyTheJew]

Well...
John and gene show just got the best endorsement they could ask for....
Crazy this social media phase has become...

We've never really discussed rapper takashi 69 but hes also a rat in the rap game, AND STILL RECORDS!!

[mafiastudent]

thanks for the posts gents.

Ridiculous Pasqua getting time served. What did he contribute except lies and further criminality post his deal?

Joseph looks like a 12yr old boy.

Pasqua is a scumbag lying sack of shit.

[Philly d]

Also in 2009, after Lombardo was arrested for beating a hotdog vendor with a hammer and torching his van for refusing to pay him protection money, he wore a wire against the poor hot dog guy and taped him offering to drop the charges "for $5000 now and $10,000 next Tuesday."

Hahaha this is fuckin hilarious. Thanks for posting

So is this considered ratting? Lol

Hell ya that's ratting. How is this guy around the Genevose? And why would Pasqua get made for a hit for this guy?

[AntComello]

Also in 2009, after Lombardo was arrested for beating a hotdog vendor with a hammer and torching his van for refusing to pay him protection money, he wore a wire against the poor hot dog guy and taped him offering to drop the charges "for $5000 now and $10,000 next Tuesday."

Hahaha this is fuckin hilarious. Thanks for posting

So is this considered ratting? Lol

Hell ya that's ratting. How is this guy around the Genevose? And why would Pasqua get made for a hit for this guy?

Is this guy Lombardo still around the Genovese even after wearing a wire on the poor hotdog guy? Lol

[TallGuy19]

How was Patty Lombardo still a Genovese associate in 2011 if he was wearing a wire in 2009?

[mlm0047]

How was Patty Lombardo still a Genovese associate in 2011 if he was wearing a wire in 2009?

Agreed, would like more information here if anyone has it