Gangland 10/21/21

[Dr031718]

Octagenarian Wiseguy Goes From Old Folks Home To The 'Horrific, Horrendous' MDC

Gang Land Exclusive!Benjamin CastellazzoHe's 84 years old, takes seven prescription meds a day, and until last month he lived in a senior citizen facility in Manahawkin, NJ. But the feds say Benjamin (The Claw) Castellazzo is a sharp, old school wiseguy, not a doddering old geezer. Exhibit A, according to prosecutors, is that The Claw knew he had dodged a bullet when the feds didn't seize his cell phone when they arrested and jailed him, so he told a relative to get rid of it when he got him on the phone.

That's a big reason why the Colombo crime family underboss was ordered held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn last week — by a judge who declared that the conditions at the MDC under which Castellazzo was detained were "horrific, horrendous, despicable and untenable."

Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara agreed with prosecutors that Castellazzo displayed a "guilty conscience" when he told a family member to "throw away his cell" phone six days after his arrest. Bulsara denied Castellazzo's bail motion. But the judge said he was "not going to put an 84 year-old man's life at risk by depending on the MDC" and would writ The Claw out for hospital visits or "checkups with his doctors" to accommodate the mobster's medical needs.

Andrew RussoCastellazzo, family boss Andrew (Mush) Russo, consigliere Ralph DeMatteo, and their 11 codefendants are scheduled to appear together for the first time today at a status conference before Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Allyne Ross. So far, only one defendant, capo Vincent (Vinny Unions) Ricciardo, the focal point of the 20-year-long labor racketeering charge in the case, has begged off due to healh issues.

In Castellazzo's bail hearing a week ago, Magistrate Bulsara declared that he "is disgusted with the MDC, with the conditions there," stating that he was "offended" when prosecutors "gloss over the fact" that often "there is no electricity" or "no drinking water or even the most basic needs" available to inmates who are housed at the MDC.

The judge may be disgusted with the MDC, but he still sent the facility another tenant. Castellazzo is the third mobster in the case to lose an appeal of detention that was ordered on the day of his arrest on September 14. Ricciardo, 75, and Bonanno mobster John (Bazoo) Ragano, 59, also lost their own bids to escape the now widely acknowledged wretched conditions at the federal lockup in Sunset Park.

Judge Sankey BulsaraBut The Claw is the first whose denial stemmed in large measure on a tape recorded prison phone call. The call was made by the gangster while he was quarantined and unable to meet with his lawyer due to Covid-19 protocols that the MDC invoked with all the incarcerated defendants in the case.

Judge Bulsara made it clear that a major factor in his decision to deny Castellazzo bail was a discussion The Claw had with an unidentified family member on September 20, six days after his arrest in a phone call that prosecutors James McDonald and Devon Lash cited as evidence that Castellazzo had the power to direct "others to carry out nefarious acts."

On that day, they wrote, "the defendant directed the family member to remove items from his apartment and to throw away his cell phone." According to the feds, Castellazzo told his relative, "with my cellphone, when you get it, just throw it away."

Vincent RicciardoCastellazzo's attorney pointed out that the arresting officers couldn't have been too concerned about the potential storehouse of info inside the phone. "If the government had thought the phone had any evidentiary value, it would have been seized at the time that he was arrested," his court-appointed lawyer, Jennifer Louis-Jeune told Bulsara. Her client could have an innocent explanation, she suggested, including that "he wanted to get rid of his phone because he had no use for it in jail." She didn't know the real reason, she said, because she hadn't been able to meet with her client to discuss it.

Lash countered that if The Claw wasn't worried about the phone's contents he would have ordered his relative to just "turn it off." Telling his family member to throw it away was "evidence of a guilty conscience, trying to keep this evidence away from the government," she said.

That argument carried the day. "I'm going to deny bail," said Bulsara. He told Louis-Jeune that it was "highly problematic that getting rid of the cell phone" had "the kind of innocent meaning that you suggest." But the judge told the defense lawyer she could renew her bail motion after speaking to her client.

Lawyer Joseph CorozzoBased on the info he had before him, the judge stressed, The Claw's phone call "directly undermines the premise" of his bail motion. In the motion, the judge added, Castellazzo had asserted "that he is no longer in these rackets, that he does not contact" or control anyone to do his bidding. "You have to overcome this fundamental issue," Bulsara said, in order for "the Court to trust someone who has an extensive, extensive criminal history" and is facing "susbstantial" charges.

This week, a day after attorney Joseph Corozzo asked Judge Ross to order the MDC to cease and desist using what the lawyer described in a detailed filing as a system of "perpetutal quarantine" that had kept him from meeting with his client, capo Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico, for five weeks, the MDC announced it had rescinded those COVID-19 quarantine protocols.

The following day, on Tuesday, Corozzo stated in a one page filing that he was withdrawing his motion since he was able to meet with his client that morning.

The only other detained defendant who has appealed his detention is an ailing 350-pound mob associate Domenick Ricciardo. He's charged with shaking down the president of Local 621 of the United Construction Trades Employees Union along with his cousin, Vinny Unions Ricciardo since 2001, and with being part of a fraud scheme with Ragano.

Domenick RicciardoIn seeking bail for Ricciardo, 56, attorney Robert Caliendo wrote that the indictment and government detention memo "don't attribute a single act of actual violence to Domenick" and argues for his client'e release on home detention on a $100,000 bond secured by his client and "a cousin who is a working single-mother-of-three living on Long Island."

While the charges are serious, they "shouldn't foreclose pretrial release" because "at worst he's an alleged 'associate' with no inducted or leadership role" and the government conceded at his original detention hearing that Domenick Ricciardo "has no decision-making power, no authority, and no capacity to order other people to do things," Caliendo wrote.

"Domenick has rheumatoid arthritis" and "Domenick's hands and fingers appear bent in abnormal directions," the lawyer wrote. And after "having observed Domenick's present physical condition, counsel disputes any dangerousness risk," Caliendo wrote, noting that "he had a cane and he appeared to be struggling even to walk" during his arraignment a month ago.

Noting that Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl was "very sympathetic to Mr. Ricciardo's health conditions" back then and did "not share the government's confidence in the MDC's ability to handle his medical conditions," and that "obesity is arguably the single worst COVID risk factor" for an inmate, Caliendo has asked Judge Ross to order his client's release on bail.

The Case Of The Mob Boss's Missing Passport is Still Open

Joseph MerlinoSince his supervised release ended in July, Philadelphia mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino has been hop-scotching around the country. He's been to Las Vegas, the Jersey shore, his old hometown for a couple of Phillies games and a trip to South Philly. And he's been to the Big Apple, once or twice, not to mention his current residence in Boca Raton.

But Skinny Joey can't take a jet to Italy or a cruise to the Bahamas, or anywhere else beyond the U.S. borders. That's because, three months after he fully paid his debt to Uncle Sam, the feds have yet to return his passport.

In a continuing comedy of errors, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office has been investigating the "whereabouts of the above-captioned (former) defendant's United States passport," as prosecutor Jonathan Rebold stated in a recent court filing on the matter. Rebold's memo had one upbeat note: He reported that "on or about September 24, 2021, a representative at the State Department confirmed" that the agency had "located the defendant's passport." If so, now all they need to do is to get it to Skinny Joey.

Rebold's most recent report on the Skinny Joey Merlino Passport Fiasco was filed Friday. It is one of several submitted to Judge Richard Sullivan, who is still overseeing the blockbuster 2016 case involving 46-defendants linked to five crime families, even though the judge was elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals three years ago.

Judge Richard SullivanIn the memo, Rebold wrote that the State Department "would mail the document directly to the defendant within approximately 30 days." Rebold, sounding somewhat embarrassed, stated further that "on or about October 1," Merlino's Atlantic City lawyers "received an email from the State Department indicating that the passport had not yet been mailed. The AUSA said that the State Department "would provide counsel with a tracking number when it was ready to ship."

In the October 15 filing, Rebold wrote that he had maintained "regular contact" with Merlino's lawyers at Jacobs & Barbone and that "as recently as earlier today," the law firm "has not yet received confirmation that Mr. Merlino's passport was shipped."

The prosecutor offered no explanation as to why it would take the State Department up to 30 days to drop Skinny Joey's passport in a U.S. mail box, and he did not return a call for comment about it. But at least Rebold and Merlino's attorneys have a lot more info about Merlino's passport than they did in August when the lawyers first inquired about the missing document their client had to surrender when he was released on bail back in 2016.

Through dogged detective work with Probation officials in New York and Florida, Rebold and Merlino lawyer David Castaldi determined that the Probation Department had the passport "from between on or about August 12, 2016 up to and including on or about March 13, 2020, when it was mailed by Probation to the State Department," Rebold wrote in a September 23 filing.

Edwin JacobsWhy it was mailed to the State Department last year four months before his official release date from the Bureau of Prisons is another thing that Rebold hasn't reported, or was willing to talk to Gang Land about.

The bottom line, according to AUSA Rebold's filings with Judge Sullivan, is that Merlino's passport is at the State Department. Or maybe it's been deposited into a mailbox.

That was determined, Rebold wrote, following a talk with a State Department official identified only as "Representative-1," who promised to search for the passport, and on a subsequent talk that Castaldi had with a second unidentified State Department official who confirmed that it had been found.

Rebold's next, and hopefully his final report on the Skinny Joey Merlino Passport Fiasco, is slated to be filed next month.

"Joey's a pretty smart guy, and I can't say that his international travel plans were interrupted by this," Merlino's main lawyer Edwin Jacobs, told Gang Land yesterday. "But when the pandemic ends, he may want to vacation outside the country, on a nice quiet beach in Turks and Caicos. He's entitled to it, after all he's been through. I'm glad the government found the passport, and that Joey's getting it back."

Lovesick Capo Faces The Music Today; 'He Has A Heart Of Gold,' Says His Current Paramour

Joseph AmatoColombo capo Joseph Amato has had lousy luck and, it seems, lousier judgment in his often turbulent love life. Now federal prosecutors are asking a judge to give him up to seven years and three months behind bars for the knuckleheaded crimes he committed as he pursued his passions.

But at least one woman is sticking by his side. In a moving letter to the judge who will sentence Amato for racketeering today, his current paramour who has been with him for the last three years has poured her heart out for the 62-year-old wiseguy.

"He has a genuine heart of gold and he never ceases to amaze me in all his kind gestures," Angela Sena wrote in her letter to Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan. Sena said she has "heard the deep remorse he feels" in phone calls and has "see(n) it on his face during visits" to the Covid-19 plagued Metropolitan Detention Center where he is "being treated inhumanely."

In addition to the "nightmare we are facing as a couple," Sena wrote, Amato's mother, who was "his angel on earth, the light of his life" died while he was in prison last year. "Joey thankfully" was given a three day furlough and was "home for his mother's burial," but he was devastated that he was in prison when "his mother needed him the most," Sena wrote.

Megan Farrell"The bond he shared with her was something to be admired," wrote Sena, stating that she "could not take his pain away" during his respite from the MDC in June of last year when his mom was laid to rest. But Sena was "only able to console him and wipe his tears away," she wrote.

"All Joey kept telling me was he knew how much pain he caused me, his mother, (and his) family" and that he "wishes he could take so much back," wrote Sena.

"I hope I was able to paint a better picture into our life and the life of Joey Amato," Sena wrote, adding that she has enjoyed "a healthy loving relationship with Joey Amato for a little over three years now."

Prosecutors tell a different story. In their own memo to the judge, they cited "the seriousness of the offenses" that Amato committed to resolve problems he had with three other women from 2015 to 2018. They are asking Judge Cogan to reject a 63 month prison term that Amato has requested, arguing that the gangster deserved to spend up to two additional years behind bars, well beyond the the five-years-plus called for in the defense view of the sentencing guidelines in his plea deal.

Joseph Amato Jr.In 2015, and again in 2017, the prosecutors wrote, Amato stalked his then girlfriend by placing a GPS device on her car and sending her threatening emails "in an attempt to maintain control over her." The scheme ended only when the feds searched his home and found a second GPS device that he bought after the woman had found the first one and gotten rid of it, they said.

A year later, wrote prosecutors Elizabeth Geddes and Megan Farrell, when another woman with whom Amato "was romantically involved" told him that "she had seen video footage" of him with a different woman at a Staten Island bar, Amato "dispatched his son," Joseph Amato Jr., to threaten the bar's employees to never make that mistake again involving his father.

Young Amato recruited ready, willing and capable mob associate Anthony (Bugz) Silvestro "to carry out his father's order," the prosecutors wrote. They noted that in a December 7, 2018 tape-recorded call Joseph Jr. told Silvestro "we might have to do something quick tonight" and asked Bugz if he could "get three or four kids to come with us?"

Anthony Silvestro"It depends," said Silvestro. "What are we trying to do. We're beating this [expletive]'s ass or no?"

Thankfully, for the workers, who weren't beaten, and for Silvestro and the Amatos, who were not charged with assault or worse, Amato Jr. stated they were only going to "have a serious talk" with people and that actual violence "was not part of the plan," they wrote.

Violence was the plan, however, the prosecutors told Cogan, when Amato, his son and other crew members "viciously assaulted an individual" in 2014 in order "to protect his reputation as a violent mobster" a day after the good guy had chided Amato Jr. for "disrespecting a young woman" in a Staten Island nightclub and then told the gangster's son he didn't know or care who the elder Amato was.

Geddes and Farrell acknowledged that the crime occurred beyond the five year statute of limitations and that Amato could not be charged with the crime of assault. But they asked the judge to consider Amato's actions when he imposed his sentence.

In pushing for the higher guidelines — 70 to 87 months instead of 63 to 78 months — the prosecutors argued that prior convictions and a long 15 year sentence for racketeering "have thus far not only failed to deter him from engaging in future criminal activity, but also failed to deter him from introducing his son —and now codefendant — into a life of organized crime."

Because he "regularly included his son in criminal activity connected to the crime family" and revealed a "willingness to compromise his own family for the benefit of organized crime," and encouraged "others to engage in violent crime" for the Colombo family, Amato deserves a prison term up to 87 months in prison, not 63 months as his lawyer Scott Leemon asked for, they wrote.

[Dapper_Don]

thanks for posting, happy thursday

[Pmac2]

ty

[Amershire_Ed]

Thanks for posting. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of time Amato gets.

[Southshore88]

Thanks for posting

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting!

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for posting

[stubbs]

Thanks for posting!

Still amazed Amato was ever made a captain. That whole gps to track his girlfriend fiasco makes him seem, uh, not the sharpest knife in the drawer so to speak.

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for posting!

Still amazed Amato was ever made a captain. That whole gps to track his girlfriend fiasco makes him seem, uh, not the sharpest knife in the drawer so to speak.

He probably got shelved or will get shelved if the Colombo’s got a brain, but we know how the Colombo’s are

[Tonyd621]

Thanks for posting!

Still amazed Amato was ever made a captain. That whole gps to track his girlfriend fiasco makes him seem, uh, not the sharpest knife in the drawer so to speak.

I'm not amazed... he was a money maker.. What did he do when he got out of his last stint? He hit the ground running, quickly formed a crew, started shaking down independent shys, independent bookmakers ("the lion" the boscos) I mean albeit some weren't very successful with some of those endeavors.
Nevertheless, he made alot of money with his crew of at one time nobodies. He got caught up in some pussy, hell happens to alot of us...ask Pennisi.
Not messing with another made guys wife is one of the very few rules that will still get you clipped in 2021. So yes the pussy will get in trouble real quick. Shouldn't be shelved for it though. He's going to do his time for that.

[Tonyd621]

Phil Leotardo would not like Joey Amato crying. That would get him more than shelved,though.

[Uforeality]

If Amato was with the Genovese we would be talking about his disappearance.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the post Dr.

Benji's in a rest home. Probably a step up from his trailer. This guy gets busted for telling someone to get rid of his phone (because it'll likely incriminate him) .... on the phone!
Jeezus H Christ. When will these idiots learn. Stay off the fucking phone Benji!

Fascinating story about Joeys Passport. Cannot believe Capeci was chasing that up and making phone calls for comments. Sad.

Everybody saying Amato is going to get benched. For what? It wasnt a made guys girl he was chasing. Who gives a fuck if he tracks a broad he fancies. If Cosa Nostra shelves guys for as little as that, there wouldnt be cosa nostra.

[Nurzhamba]

how are things going with the Amato team now, has it probably been merged? and guys like Amato jr and Bugs Silvestro are involved in the cases or after the indictments they decided to back off?

[Nurzhamba]

As far as I remember, in the Amato team, before their detention, the soldiers were Johnny Capaldo, John Cerbone, Larry Sessa, Scorcia. The latter disappears. Correct me if I'm wrong