Gangland 5/13

[Dr031718]

NJ Businessman Charged In Home Invasion Assault Of Former Reality TV Star Dina Manzo

Dina ManzoGang Land Exclusive!The messy and tangled lives of the Real Housewives of New Jersey got even messier on Tuesday when Thomas Manzo, the embattled ex-husband of former Housewives star Dina Manzo, was arrested and charged with armed robbery and the violent home invasion of his ex-wife's domicile in 2017.

The new charges are more bad news for the high-powered Garden State businessman who is already waiting trial for hiring a Luchese soldier to assault his ex-wife's then-boyfriend David Cantin in 2015.

Manzo, who is being held in a Monmouth County jail pending a detention hearing on Friday, allegedly stalked Ms. Manzo and her husband-to-be as they moved through two New Jersey counties during the time frame when both violent assaults occurred, between 2015 and 2018, according to the new indictment that was filed by county prosecutors. Manzo, 56, is charged with the 2015 assault in Newark Federal Court.

Sources say that Manzo, who faces up to 20 years behind bars for the state charges, was able to coordinate the two violent assaults he is now alleged to have orchestrated, namely the July 18, 2015 beating of Cantin at a strip mall in Totowa, and the May 13, 2017 baseball bat assault and robbery in Holmdel, by stalking the couple for years.

Thomas ManzoThe new indictment charges Manzo with stalking his ex-wife and Cantin, whose names are whited out of the nine-count indictment, during a four year period from January 2015 to January, 2019. Manzo allegedly shadowed the couple, in "diverse locations between the City of Paterson and/ or the Borough of Totowa, County of Passaic, and/or the Township of Holmdel and/or the Township of Manalapan," in Monmouth County.

The stalking charge is a misdemeanor count that carries a maximum penalty of only 18 months for "knowingly engaging in a course of conduct (that) would cause a reasonable person to fear for (his or her) her safety." But it suggests how Manzo was allegedly able to orchestrate the two violent assaults he is now charged with.

The indictment accuses Manzo and longtime Luchese family associate James (Jimmy Balls) Mainello, 53, of the home invasion attack in which Mainello and an unidentified cohort stole $500 in cash and Dina Manzo's engagement ring. The ring was allegedly stolen when the couple, without any public notice, returned home after attending the First Holy Communion of Dina's goddaughter, according to court filings in the case.

John PernaAs Gang Land wrote when Manzo and Luchese mobster John Perna were charged with the 2015 assault against Cantin last July, assistant state prosecutor Caitlin Sidley had already obtained a superseding indictment naming Manzo as an unindicted conspirator with Mainello in the 2017 home invasion. Jimmy Balls has been behind bars and awaiting trial since his arrest in May of 2019.

In announcing the new indictment Tuesday, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni stated that the lengthy home invasion probe "ultimately uncovered Manzo's role in stalking both victims and his motivations for the robbery and assault carried out by Mainello and another still unknown assailant."

The indictment doesn't mention Manzo's motivations, but as one source with insight about the two cases told us last year, Manzo became incensed when he learned that Dina had announced her engagement to Cantin. "Tommy was hot to trot," the source said. "He needed someone to do some work for him and he knew where to look."

James MainelloAs payment for his help with the 2015 assault, Manzo allegedly gave Perna a free wedding reception at The Brownstone, a Paterson banquet hall that Manzo co-owns with a brother. Manzo was unable to use the Luchese mobster for the 2017 assignment because Perna was serving a 42-month stretch for a state racketeering conviction at the time.

The indictment doesn't mention how state prosecutors came up with the stalking evidence that links Manzo to the 2017 home invasion. But sources say that Mainello's attorney Marco Laracca had a hand in helping them acquire the evidence they needed by asking the state judge to order the feds to turn over evidence they had obtained about Manzo, then an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

After Laracca argued that the state and federal prosecutors were working together, which both entities deny, and sought the evidence the feds had regarding Manzo, the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's office did not contest the move, and gave him the evidence the FBI had obtained in court-authorized searches of The Brownstone and Manzo's home.

Sources say that after the federal prosecutors turned the material over to Laracca, and gave a copy to the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, the state prosecutors had what they needed to charge Manzo not only with stalking Dina Manzo and Cantin, but with being a Mainello accomplice in the 2017 home invasion.

According to an arrest complaint in the state case, as soon as Dina and Cantin 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."

David Cantin-Dina ManzoCantin then saw "a second (masked) suspect" push Dina "against a wall" and "cover her mouth before throwing her to the floor and kicking her," the complaint said. 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."

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.

Perna, who pleaded guilty in December to assaulting Cantin in a plea deal calling for a recommended prison term between 28 and 30 months, is scheduled to be sentenced by Newark Federal Judge Kevin McNulty next month.

No date is set for Manzo's federal court trial, which is unlikely to begin until next year. It's very possible that Manzo's state court trial could take place before then, even though the indictment was just filed since Laracca has been pushing for a trial for Mainello, who has been detained without bail for two years.

State prosecutor Sidley, and the federal prosecutor in the Manzo case, Grady O'Malley, as well as Manzo's lawyer, declined to comment or did not return calls about the case from Gang Land.

Laracca told Gang Land he saw nothing in the material the feds gave him that linked Manzo to stealing his ex-wife's engagement ring. In a prepared statement, the lawyer wrote that his client is eager to have "his day in court" and that they are "more confident today than we were two years ago that Mr. Mainello will walk out of the courtroom vindicated once the jury hears the true story and is presented with the real facts."

Gang Land Exclusive: The Mafia Doesn't Do 'Work' On Mother's Day, Said Lefty Guns

Benjamin RuggieroIt was the day before Mother's Day 1981, and Bonanno mobster Benjamin (Lefty Guns) Ruggiero was explaining the Mob Rules of the Road to an ambitious jewel thief named Donnie Brasco: The Mafia, Lefty Guns instructed him, never works on Mother's Day.

We know this wonderful tale because, as Ruggiero and his crew mates were soon to painfully discover, Donnie Brasco was actually an FBI agent named Joe Pistone who was nearing the end of a five year undercover stint in which he penetrated a level of the Mafia that the FBI had never reached before.

Pistone didn't include the conversation in the book he wrote about his undercover role. And it wasn't in the fine movie co-starring Al Pacino as the hapless Lefty Guns and Johnny Depp as the somewhat conflicted undercover agent. But the episode did come up briefly when Pistone was on the stand at the trial of Ruggiero and four others. And the intriguing, but very tall tale, has been written as gospel in articles about mob protocol over the years.

Famed attorney David Breitbart, who won an acquittal for mobster John (Boobie) Cerasani of racketeering charges based on Pistone's work, brought up the taped talk, in which Ruggiero stated that all of his wiseguy friends had gone home early that day because the next day was Mother's Day, when Pistone was on the stand.

David BreitbartHe then sarcastically asked the G-man: "And you believed Lefty when he told you the Mafia doesn't work on Mother's Day?"

Pistone smiled, but before he could answer, prosecutor Barbara Jones objected. Manhattan Federal Judge Robert Sweet sustained the objection and Pistone never answered the question, or provided any insight about Lefty's seemingly incredible assertion that Mother's Day was an official Mafia holiday.

But 40 years and four days later, Gang Land can state with 100 per cent certainty, that Lefty's words stemmed from an off the cuff remark he was told to ease his concern about getting killed as he dined at the Copacabana with several other wiseguys and their wives on Mother's Day during a raging 1960s shooting war between two factions of the Bonanno crime family.

Lefty's query wasn't half-baked. Half a dozen mobsters lost their lives during the bloodletting. One side was pro Joe Bonanno, who was deposed by the Commission as family boss, and the other was anti the legendary gangster.

As the wiseguys and their wives enjoyed themselves, Ruggiero asked an older, wiser wiseguy, who was also a higher-ranked, and more knowledgeable mobster: "How can we be sitting here in the Copa? There's a war going on, and we're in the middle of it," an unimpeachable source told Gang Land the other day.

Joe PistoneThe answer, according to Gang land's very knowledgeable source: "No one gets hurt on Mother's day. Never. There's a national moratorium on it."

"He smiled when he said it," the source continued. "It was just something that he said to Lefty to put him at ease, not to ruin the Mother's Day dinner they were having. It was kinda true, too, but it wasn't an edict."

But Lefty Guns apparently took it very seriously, and when he was schooling Donnie Brasco on mob protocol 15 or so years later, he told him, "You know, Mother's Day is the only day we got off. Everybody's going home early today. You can't do nothing on Mother's Day."

Ruggiero, who was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 15 years by Judge Sweet, did not get whacked, as the Al Pacino character was in the movie version of Pistone's undercover trip into the Bonanno crime family.

And he is not alive and well, and 95 years old, either, as the Bureau of Prisons database indicates. Released from prison in 1993, Lefty Guns died of natural causes on Thanksgiving Day in 1994. He was 68.

The Father Went Into The Program; The Son Now Faces The Music

Primo Cassarino Jr.His father was a Gambino mobster who turned on the mob 16 years ago and left his wife and kids to shift for themselves to escape an 11-year sentence. Today, the feds say that the son, Primo Cassarino Jr., is a mob associate who deserves up to 27 months in prison for loansharking and gambling and his ties to a powerful Colombo capo and a second family wiseguy.

His attorney has offered a very different pedigree for the defendant. He says Cassarino Jr., who was his class representative in the seventh grade at St. Bernadette's school in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn in 1999, is a loving son and father who's worked hard since he graduated high school. He first supported his mom and sister, and now he supports his wife and their four young kids. For those reasons alone, says the lawyer, he deserves a break in his first encounter with the law.

The 33-year-old Cassarino is one of 20 defendants arrested in an October 2019 racketeering case stemming from the dumb actions of Joseph Amato, the lovesick Staten Island capo who tried to track his girlfriend with a GPS device and wound up bringing the feds down on himself, his son Joseph Jr, and his crew.

Cassarino Jr. is slated to be sentenced today by Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan for arranging a $30,000 loan for a losing gambler who owed Cassarino money.

Primo CassarinoWhen the deadbeat gambler "missed a payment" of the loan, wrote prosecutors Elizabeth Geddes, Megan Farrell and James McDonald, Cassarino "used the implicit threat of violence to collect the loan" from him in July of 2019.

Cassarino Jr.'s implied threat of violence is a far cry from the actual violence, including extortion, assault, armed robbery and arson, that his old man dispensed as an enforcer for the Gambino family on the docks two decades ago. Convicted of waterfront racketeering in 2003, Cassarino Sr. flipped in 2005, and ended up serving about five years behind bars.

Noting that his client had no prior arrests, or ties to the mob, attorney Vincent Licata has asked Cogan to impose a sentence of a year and a day — which would mean about 10 months behind bars. The lawyer argues that prison term "would not create any unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct."

But prosecutors counter that it is "critical" that Cogan impose a prison term between the agreed-upon 21 and 27 month guidelines for Cassarino Jr. They cite contacts he had with the elder Amato and mobster Thomas (The Plumber) Scorcia, as well as the bookmaking business he operated with Amato Jr. in 2018 and 2019 that elevated Cassarino into the loansharking arena.

Joseph Amato"A sentence below the Guidelines range would be insufficient to protect the public from further crimes" by Cassarino and would not "deter others who are in a position to choose between a law-abiding life and a life of crime," the prosecutors wrote.

The prosecutors cited numerous taped calls in which Cassarino and Amato Jr. were heard discussing their bookmaking business "that almost certainly was approved by" the elder Amato, as well as the loan that Cassarino arranged for the losing gambler, identified only as John Doe#6.

During a December 4, 2018 call, the duo "agreed that John Doe #6 would use $27,000 of the money he received from the ($30,000) loan to repay $27,000 that John Doe #6 owed to Cassarino and Amato, Jr.," the prosecutors wrote. Earlier in the same conversation, they wrote, the defendant had told the the younger Amato: "Me and you get 13.5 each."

During their discussion, the prosecutors wrote, the duo agreed that Cassarino would get his buddy, codefendant John (Slacks) Dunn to extend a $30,000 loan to John Doe #6, and give Dunn a bonus of "$3000 for coordinating the loan." They agreed to split the remaining $27,000 between them, and they did, the prosecutors wrote.

Joseph Amato Jr.After Amato Jr. approved "the details of the loan terms involving John Doe #6" with his father, the prosecutors wrote, Cassarino called Dunn to confirm the specifis of the loan he was going to extend to John Doe #6. "Roughly a minute later," they wrote, Amato Jr. called John Doe #6 to firm up the details of the $30,000 loan he would receive to help him pay his gambling debt.

"Given all of the facts and circumstances," wrote prosecutors Geddes, Farrell and McDonald, "a sentence within the applicable Guidelines range is necessary."

Licata's pitch for a year and a day sentence is a realistic counter, however. Last month, Cogan imposed a prison term of nine months for Dunn, whose guidelines were also 21-to-27 months.

The disappearance of the elder Cassarino into the Witness Protection Program when he was released from prison in 2007 was not mentioned in either of the sentencing memos to the judge.

But in her plea for leniency for Primo, his mom, Antoinette Cassarino alluded to it, writing that she raised her "son as a single mother since he was 14 years old." In her letter, she begged Cogan to "please give him a second chance" because "he is a decent man, a good husband and a great father whose four children adore him, love him and most of all need him."

Noting that Primo Jr. "is the sole supporter" of his wife and four children, aged 14 months to seven years, and that "he has a good job (as a stage hand at the Metroplitan Opera House, although he's been laid off by its closure during the COVID pandemic) that he will likely lose" if he goes to prison, Mrs. Cassarino begged, "Please don't send him away."

[Amershire_Ed]

Thanks for posting

[jimmi_beans8]

had to google Dina,,,,,not bad

[Tonyd621]

How the f**k is Mainello detained without bail for 2 years? When allegedly murderers and far worse felonious crimes are either getting no bail at all or very low? Someone tell me its not because hes italian... convince me

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for posting

[JohnnyS]

Thanks Dr

[Dave65827]

Thanks for posting

Little disappointed for no mention of Farese and his scam. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t an OC investigation idk

[Southshore88]

Thanks for posting.

[funkster]

Manzo's a fucking loser.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Appreciate the post.

[TommyGambino]

What's Mario Cassarino to primo, brother?

[elasticman]

Thanks for posting

Little disappointed for no mention of Farese and his scam. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t an OC investigation idk

Also the investigation was down in Florida, Capeci's stronghold is the northeast, and really New York.

[Rocco]

Mainello gets convicted hes toast. With his record hes gonna get 15-20yrs. wonder if he will flip..?

[Tonyd621]

Mainello gets convicted hes toast. With his record hes gonna get 15-20yrs. wonder if he will flip..?

Its the life we choose. Its his fault. He took the job. You cant bring your phone going on any job anymore. I mean its difficult to get around those high def cameras that some toll or tunnels have but there is way(s). Im not advocatiny or condoning anything im just saying he should take a plea bc he knows its his own dam fault. Plus, speaking to the people your robbing...

[newera_212]

Feel bad for the Cassarino kid