Gangland 4/8/21

[Dr031718]

My Lawyer, Dad, & Wiseguy Uncle Bullied Me Into Pleading Guilty'

Gang Land Exclusive!John DelutroFalse confessions are known to happen, usually when overbearing cops coerce innocent people into admitting guilt to something they didn't do. But a mob associate is making a compelling claim in a pro se motion to win a release from prison for a 2010 conviction for a robbery-murder that forges new ground: He says he was forced into making a false confession by his lawyer, his Gambino soldier uncle, and even his dad, all of whom "bullied" him into pleading guilty.

Stating that he "never carried out the crime" in which jeweler Louis Antonelli was killed during an April 29, 2008 robbery, John (Wizzie) Delutro argues that the record of the controversial case shows that he "walked away" from the fatal Staten Island robbery long before it happened. He is asking Brooklyn Federal Judge Carol Amon to reconsider her ruling to keep him behind bars, he says, because "I'm actually innocent."

Delutro told Amon that a few months after his arrest in October of 2009, prosecutors arranged a "special visit" to the Metropolitan Detention Center. Even though the day was technically "a non-visit day," his father and uncle, John (Baby John) Delutro, were allowed to accompany his attorney, Arnold Kriss to the jail. Delutro says the trio told him that he "had 48 hours to decide to accept 20 years or go to trial and get life . . . for something I said no to."

Arnold Kriss"I had never been in trouble before," wrote Delutro. "I was scared and bullied into taking a binding plea" that called for a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years for a robbery conspiracy conviction. He took the plea, he says because he was told he otherwise faced the likelihood of life in prison. He subsequently learned he wasn't facing a life sentence, Delutro wrote.

As a result, Delutro, 43, told Amon in an eight-page handwritten filing last week, he pleaded guilty to a robbery conspiracy charge on February 9, 2010 and was given 20 years behind bars. He did so, he wrote, even though he "respected the law and walked away" from the crime before it happened. "I thought I was in a nightmare," Delutro wrote.

"Your honor," he wrote, "that 3 months (actually four from arrest to guilty plea, according to court records,) was a blur. I was scared and had no idea what was going on," Delutro wrote. "I signed a plea and now say I'm innocent," he said. "It sounds like a crazy stupid story but it's the truth."

Anthony DiPietroDelutro's pro se motion follows an earlier bang-up effort to win compassionate release that appeals attorney Anthony DiPietro submitted for Wizzie in December and which Gang Land wrote about on Christmas Eve. That motion was denied by Amon on March 10. In her seven page decision, the judge wrote that "the robbery to which Delutro conspired was 'extraordinarily serious' and resulted in the victim's death."

"After reading your opinion," Delutro wrote, "it's clear to me that you really still believe that I was more involved than I was, and that you don't believe that I'm actually innocent. I just can't get out of my head that you really believe I had something to do with this. This was my only chance to get in front of you."

Delutro cited the testimony of Salvatore (Sally Fish) Maniscalco, "the only cooperator against me," and the words that prosecutor John Buretta had stated at the sentencing of a codefendant as evidence that Wizzie and Sally Fish had left the intersection of Broadway and Castleton Avenue before two others arrived there and robbed and killed Antonelli.

Salvatore ManiscalcoManiscalco, who was arrested in December of 2008, agreed to cooperate nine months later and fingered Delutro in the plot. Delutro was quickly arrested and jailed without bail. Sally Fish, whose decision to flip was an open secret — Gang Land reported it on November 19, 2009 — was one of three cooperators, but he was the only turncoat who fingered Wizzie, according to court records.

Kriss knew that Maniscalco had linked Delutro to the plot, and the lawyer had told the feds in a January 19, 2010 letter that "Delutro was not at Broadway and Castleton" when the robbery murder occurred. So why would a defense attorney even consider letting his client take a no-bargain 20-year plea when the only witness against him said he had nothing to do with the killing?

Kriss declined to respond to that question, or any others concerning his representation of Delutro, and referred Gang Land to his current attorney. DiPietro declined to discuss the case, but agreed to send along a statement.

"John was railroaded by all parties," said DiPietro. "His original sentence is draconian and he deserves a reduction after serving more than a decade in prison on a questionable conspiracy charge for which a jury would have likely acquitted him based on Maniscalco's testimony."

Uncle John DelutroCourt records indicate that Kriss sought a deal for 14-to-17 years but was told that Delutro would have to agree to 20 years to avoid a trial. Kriss was concerned, according to the records and a family friend, that despite the fact that his client had no role in the killing, Delutro could still be convicted of the conspiracy and a 924c gun count calling for a mandatory 10 years and get hit with 30 years in the case.

The family friend told Gang Land that Baby John Delutro "got Kriss to represent his nephew and is sick about how it worked out. He doesn't talk to him any more." Kriss had done pretty well as Baby John's barrister, according to court records. He represented him in a 2000 federal drug indictment and engineered a sweet "time served" sentence of five days for him in 2002.

In his filing, Delutro gave no details about the MDC meeting when Kriss, his late father Peter, who died of cancer in 2016, and Baby John, who famously owns and operates the Caffe Palermo on Mulberry Street, all "bullied" him into pleading guilty.

In an affidavit Peter Delutro submitted as part of an "ineffective assistance of counsel" claim that his son filed against Kriss in 2011, the elder Delutro said Kriss "manipulated" him and "John's uncle" into "convincing my son to plead guilty to charges that he was not guilty of" during a long MDC session they had with his son on the Sunday before his son pleaded guilty.

Judge Carol AmonPeter Delutro stated that he was "sickened" to recall that "after 4-to-6 hours of tag team style conversation" with his son, "Kriss, John's uncle, and I, were able to convince my son to plead guilty to charges that he adamantly insisted that he was not guilty of right up to the very day that he actually entered his plea of guilty to the charges."

In court that day, Kriss had to speak privately to his client during the guilty plea session. And there was an anxious moment when Delutro answered, "No," when he should have said, "Yes." And even after Delutro corrected his response, he stated that he first learned about the robbery when he was at Broadway and Castleton.

Amon: The object of the conspiracy is that you were going to rob someone in Staten Island who you understood to have a lot of jewelry with him?
Delutro: Yes, Your Honor.
Amon: And did you take any steps to further that agreement?
Delutro: No.
Amon: Go ahead.
Delutro: Yes. We engaged in conversation and we talked about this and conspired to rob him. We were at the location where he was.
Amon: So, you actually went to the location where you knew he was going to be in order for the robbery to go forward.
Delutro: We happened to be at the location when I found out. When I caught wind, as I said before, of what was going on, that's when I engaged in conversation and conspired to proceed to rob the person who was there.

Anthony AnticoPeter Delutro wrote that Kriss got him and Baby John to persuade Delutro to plead guilty by telling them that "the government has clear and convincing evidence of your son's participation in the robbery and untimely death of the wholesale jeweler" without describing it to them.

When they asked Kriss to explain the evidence, according to Peter Delutro, he "would become nervous and attempt to change the subject by talking about a plea agreement that he had worked out with the government, and that if my son did not accept the plea agreement, he would have to withdraw from the case and my son would have to proceed to trial on his own."

In a reply affidavit, Kriss denied any impropriety in his work for Delutro, stating he had "no doubt" that "Delutro knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently entered a plea of guilty" and that at "no time did I ever raise the possibility that I would withdraw as Mr. Delutro's attorney if he did not plead guilty or for any other reason."

Anthony PicaAt the trial of Genovese capo Anthony (Tico) Antico, who was charged but acquitted of setting up the robbery of Antonelli, Maniscalco described the goings on at Broadway and Castleton Avenue while he and Delutro were waiting for the jeweler to show up and Delutro was talking to one of their cohorts on the phone.

"I said, 'John, look, there's a camera right there. There's a cop there. Just forget about this.' I said, 'No way. Tell him forget about it. It's a dead issue.' You know, no good. So he repeated into the phone, 'This is a dead issue, we're out of here.' I said, 'Let's go.' So we got into the car. I made a U-turn. I drove back up Broadway," and then drove Delutro home, Maniscalco testified.

At the sentencing of Anthony Pica, the other defendant who went to trial, Buretta told Amon that "on the day of the robbery, Mr. Pica was running things," but that "Mr. Maniscalco and Mr. Delutro decided to leave because they believed that there was too much law enforcement scrutiny in the area that day."

Almost all the "facts" in Delutro's filing are backed up by the court record of the two trials and three other guilty pleas. But getting Amon to reconsider her denial won't be easy. That's because Amon has presided over all the trials, guilty pleas and follow-up motions by Wizzie in the case.

Editor's Note: Gang Land is taking off on a Spring break next week but will be back with some real stuff about organized crime in two weeks, on April 22, 2021.

The Plumber Gets 42 Months; The Lion Got 24

Thomas ScorciaIt got a little crowded in a courtroom in Brooklyn this week as Colombo wiseguy Thomas (The Plumber) Scorcia appeared for sentencing. Or at least that is how federal judge Brian Cogan saw things, even though the proceeding took place remotely via computer hookup. As the defense and government debated how long The Plumber should be locked up for his conviction for loansharking and racketeering, Cogan said they had all missed "the elephant in the room." He then went on to name said elephant.

"The defendant," said Cogan, "is a made guy" who is likely to resume his activities for the Colombo crime family once he completes his sentence. He added that he had "never seen (one) walk away from the mob" after getting out of prison.

The judge also noted, as prosecutor Elizabeth Geddes had stressed in arguing for a guidelines sentence of almost four years in prison, that it "was very troubling" that Scorcia had threatened the use of violence against rival family loanshark Dominick (The Lion) Ricigliano. Cogan cited as well the evidence collected by the FBI when the Plumber was arrested, including guns, clubs, batons, ski masks and other tools of the mob trade.

But even after introducing the big gray pachyderm in the courtroom, and bemoaning Scorcia's mob pedigree, Cogan then proceeded to cut him something of a break.

Judge Brian CoganInstead of the 47 months prison time sought by the government, and the even longer five-year sentence that probation officials recommended for the 54-year-old mobster, Cogan dispatched The Plumber to federal custody for just 42 months.

Cogan stated that under most circumstances when dealing with a mobster, he would "accept probation's recommendation to do an upward variance." But he said there were "substantial" mitigating factors that in Scorcia's case that "warrant a lot of consideration."

In a reference to the sentencing memo that lawyers Vincent Romano and Anthony DiPietro had filed for Scorcia, Cogan noted that the "hard work" that Scorcia had done in completing the numerous self-help courses he attended while locked up since his arrest 16 months ago was "very impressive" especially considering his "relative short time in custody."

In their filing, the lawyers wrote that Scorcia had "excelled with above average grades" in 23 separate courses he completed at the Metropolitan Detention Center that "demonstrate his extraordinary rehabilitative efforts and his commitment to reenter his community as a positive contributor."

Dominick RiciglianoCogan turned down an impassioned plea by Romano to downwardly depart from the guidelines and impose a 27 month sentence. The lawyer highlighted his client's work with suicide prevention at the MDC, crediting him with "saving the lives of inmates" while enduring harsh physical and emotional trauma himself, including a debilitating bout with the deadly COVID virus.

The judge agreed that he had "never seen an inmate" complete as many rehabilitative courses as The Plumber had, but noted that in their remarks to the judge, both Romano and Scorcia had "ignored the elephant in the room."

Last week, Cogan sentenced Ricigliano, who teamed up with Scorcia in a loansharking venture after they settled their feud to two years in prison followed by a year of post-prison supervised release when he completes his sentence. Ricigliano, 31, was ordered to self-surrender and begin serving his prison term next month.

The Two Mikes Have Beaten COVID; The Fight For Compassion Goes On

Michael PadavonaMichael Palmaccio and Michael Padavona, the Howard Beach mobsters who were convicted and sent to prison for racketeering along with their Bonanno family skipper Ronald (Ronnie G) Giallanzo, are still hoping to get some compassion from their sentencing judge.

During the height of the pandemic last year, the Two Mikes cited their pre-existing ailments as indicators they were likely to contract the deadly COVID bug in seeking a compassionate release. Since then, each man has contracted and recovered from the coronavirus. But their motions are still pending before Brooklyn Federal Judge Dora Irizarry.

In his latest filing, the third since Gang Land wrote about the duo in December, attorney Gerard Marrone states that Padavona, who first sought compassion back in October, is still suffering from his COVID-19 illness, "experiencing what medical experts are now calling 'long COVID' or 'long-haul COVID'" and fears being infected again with the deadly virus.

Judge Dora IrizarryPadavona, who tested positive in October and isn't due for release until January 20, 2024, is serving eight years at the Fort Dix prison compound in New Jersey, which was hard hit by the virus last year, and currently ranks fifth in the number of active COVID infections according to the Bureau of Prisons — with 15 inmates and 50 staffers currently infected.

According to the BOP, two Fort Dix inmates have died from the disease and a total of 1803 others, as well as 50 staffers have recovered from the virus.

Noting that Padavona, 52, has not received any COVID vaccination shot and has been given no idea by his jailers, when, or if, he will get one, Marrone wrote that he "humbly ask(s) this court" to rule "in favor of a compassionate release" for his client whose motion "has been pending for a number of months."

Padavona should not expect to learn one way or the other very soon.

In response to Marrone's letter, Irizarry ordered prosecutors to file their expected objections to his compassionate release by April 16.

Michael PalmaccioPalmaccio, 49, is serving a seven-year stretch at the prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, which was hit even harder by the virus: Six inmates there died from COVID. Another 145 staffers, and a total of 1145 inmates have recovered from the deadly bug.

Officials say no inmates and only one staffer are currently infected.

The feds feel the same way about this Mike as they do about Mike Padavona, and have objected to a compassionate release for Palmaccio, who filed his motion for release back in August. He tested positive for COVID back in December, and based on the recent BOP stats for his prison complex, has recovered from the disease.

Like Mike Padovano, Mike Palmaccio is still waiting to find out whether he'll be receiving some compassion or whether he should just focus on his slated mandatory release date of March 20, 2023.

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for posting this.

What family does Dominick Ricigliano has links to?

[Amershire_Ed]

Thanks for posting

[Tonyd621]

Thanks for posting this.

What family does Dominick Ricigliano has links to?

At the time of his arrest, none.

[elasticman]

Thanks for posting this.

What family does Dominick Ricigliano has links to?

Dominick Ricigliano was an independent loanshark/bookie who began to muscle in on Thomas Scorcia's territory while Scorcia was still an associate of the Colombo family. Once Scorcia was made into the Colombo crime family, working with Joey Amato's crew on Staten Island, he was able to use his newfound muscle to get Ricigliano to back off. As it says above, once they feud was settled they were able to work together.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the post Dr.

[gmadotty313]

thanks doc