Gangland: happy fucking thanksgiving

[Dellacroce]

November 26, 2015 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

It's A Happy Thanksgiving For Vinny Asaro, But Not For The Family Of Paul Katz

It's a pretty safe bet that Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro will enjoy Thanksgiving Day today, whether or not he celebrates like most Americans with a traditional turkey dinner with stuffing and all the usual trimmings. No matter what, it will taste much better than the meal he had last Thanksgiving at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

It's also a safe bet that Lawrence Katz, his sister Ilsa, their siblings and their families won't be quite as joyous or thankful as Asaro on this Thanksgiving Day, knowing that he was acquitted of the brutal 46-year-old murder of their father Paul, some of whose remains were unearthed by the FBI back on June 17, 2013.

What's less clear is how the 12 jurors at Asaro's trial will celebrate our great American holiday now that Asaro has stated loudly and clearly that he was "shocked" by his good fortune. It also remains unclear how the jury managed to acquit the Bonanno capo on a slew of complicated charges in less than two days of deliberations. In those few hours, jurors managed to dispatch with the 1978 $6 million Lufthansa Airlines robbery, Katz's 1969 slaying, a racketeering conspiracy charge with 13 separate crimes called predicate acts, and two extortion counts included in the indictment.

As ludicrous as it sounds, it's possible the jury somehow believed it wasn't Asaro and Lufthansa heist mastermind James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke who killed Katz. We don't know since no juror has come forward to explain it. But as the so-called "judges of the facts," they could have decided that Asaro's subservient cousin, government witness Gaspare (Gary) Valenti, was responsible, and that he had killed Katz with a dog chain and buried him where FBI agents found bits and pieces of him 44 years later, right where Valenti told them they would.

That's improbable, but no more unlikely than the jury's acquittal on the Lufthansa heist in two days, as we discussed last week. No other witness testified about the murder, and the jury did not know that Asaro's son Jerome had pleaded guilty to digging up Katz's remains and reburying them at his father's direction in the mid-1980s.

But the biggest puzzler is how the jury acquitted Asaro of the extortion of Robert (Bam) Cotrone, a longtime Bonanno associate who was conducting a lucrative loansharking business out of an auto body shop he owns and operates in Ozone Park from March 1 through June 30 of 2013.

Jurors heard three tape recorded discussions in which Asaro spoke to Valenti about collecting the loan, including one pretty explicit talk in which Asaro was heard encouraging Bonanno soldier John (Bazoo) Ragano to "stab him" or "give him a fucking beating" to get the cash from Cotrone.

On March 8, 2013, Asaro was heard telling Valenti that he was holding Cotrone responsible for a $75,000 loan that he had given to a car wash worker who was "with" the Gambino crime family and had "gone bad" and that he intended to get the money from Cotrone.

A month later, on April 26, is when Valenti tape-recorded Asaro giving the appropriate gangster marching orders about collecting the money to Ragano, who would ultimately plead guilty to his role in the extortion:

Asaro: What's going on? Any news?
Ragano: When do we stab this guy in the neck? That's what I want to know.
Asaro: Stab him today.
Ragano: When? That's the problem I want to know.
Asaro: Today! Today!
Valenti: Take it easy, what are you stabbing, cockroaches?
Ragano: He's the worst, this guy. This guy is the worst.
Asaro: What happened now?
Ragano: He's the worst. He don't know when to shut his mouth.
Asaro: I told you to give him a fucking beating. Give him a fucking beating, I told you. Listen, I sent three guys there to give him a beating already, so it won't be the first time he got a beating from me.

On June 11, 2013, Asaro was heard telling Valenti about the loot that he had finally gotten from Cotrone. He mentioned that it was shared by three other Bonanno mobsters, his capo son Jerome, soldier Jack Bonventre, and then acting boss Thomas (Tommy D) DiFiore. And they heard Asaro add his two-bits as he denounced DiFiore as a greedy "motherfucker" whom he wanted to kill.

Here's a snippet that was played for the jury, beginning with Valenti asking, "What happened with the money from the car wash? They was supposed to give you."

Asaro: Oh stop it. Supposed to give me what? We cut it up!
Valenti: You got four thousand . . . .
Asaro: Four thousand? I got fourteen thousand. I blew it, gambling. What are you making a face? Why, who are you, you better than me?
Valenti: Did you give, what's his name, Tommy (DiFiore) the money?
Asaro: Who?
Valenti: Tommy, the $4,000.
Asaro: I had a big fight with him the other day. We had $30,000 coming, he took $15,000 of it. I want to kill this motherfucker. We had $30,000 coming, me, Jackie and (my son) Jerry. Alright? He says, well without us we wouldn't have collected it. So we went for the money, gave me five, they gave him 15. He says, "You owe me two." Forget about the four, I owed him another two. Alright? "I'm taking that too." I said Tom, "I ain't got nothing, man." I said, "You're taking 15?" "Yeah, without me," he says, "you wouldn't a got nothing."
Valenti: He's that type of guy?
Asaro: Oh he's a cocksucker. Makes (former boss) Joey Massino look like St. Anthony, motherfucker.

As Gang Land stated last week, the prosecution team has to take some of the blame for its failure to convict Asaro of any charges in the case. And the defense team has to get credit for the total acquittal. But only something on the order of a collective brain spasm can explain why not one single juror held out for more than two days before acquitting Asaro of all the charges, including the Cotrone extortion.

Every other defendant implicated in the extortion — DiFiore, Bonventre, Ragano, and Jerome Asaro — each copped a plea deal rather than go to trial because they, and their lawyers, could envision no possible way of beating that charge given the explicit talks that Valenti had tape recorded with Vinny Asaro and Ragano.

Jerome Asaro had a bigger problem than the other three because Valenti had linked him to his father's coverup of Katz's murder. During an emotional sentencing, at which Katz's trembling daughter Ilsa, carrying a small cloth pouch with her father's ashes, confronted him, Brooklyn Federal Judge Allyne Ross sentenced him to 90 months.

Ross gave Ragano 51 months. DiFiore and Bonventre each took 21 months.

But there was no possible plea deal that would have been acceptable to both the feds and the 80-year-old Vinny Asaro for murder, and the legendary Lufthansa heist. So Asaro, a degenerate gambler who probably lost more money at the racetrack than some folks make during a lifetime, was forced to roll the dice. He ended up winning the biggest gamble of his life, for reasons that only six men and women jurors can explain — but most likely never will.

The Daily News reported last week that Asaro wants to get back his Social Security payments that were stopped when he was detained last year. The way things are breaking for the chronic brokester now, he should probably buy a few lottery tickets.

Judge Eases BF's Pain Before Bowing Out Of Michael Persico Case

Last week, after considering the issue for two months, Brooklyn Federal Judge Sandra Townes reduced the unusually stiff 14-year prison term she gave mob associate Francis (BF) Guerra for selling some of his legally prescribed pain medications by nearly three years.

Townes, the tough-sentencing jurist who had meted out the heavy prison term following Guerra's acquittal for two 1990s mob rubouts, cut off 33 months in response to the gangster's plea for relief based on lower sentencing guidelines that went into effect last year for most federal drug convictions.

The reduction is two years less than what attorney Seth Ginsberg, citing constant migraine headaches and worsening neck and back pain from serious injuries Guerra suffered in a motorcycle accident in 1985, had sought for his 50-year-old client. But Townes treated Guerra much better than prosecutors Nicole Argentieri and Allon Lifshitz wanted. They conceded that BF was eligible for a lesser sentence, but asked Townes to retain the original 14 year term.

At sentencing, Townes stated she was sending Guerra to prison for his drug conviction, not for the acquitted conduct at his contentious 2012 trial, even though she disagreed with the jury's not guilty verdict. Guerra was charged with the 1992 murder of a boyfriend of the estranged wife of acting boss Alphonse Persico, and the 1993 murder of Joseph Scopo, the 12th and last casualty of the bloody 1991-93 Colombo war.

Unlike Persico's younger brother Michael, and their cousin, capo Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico, who each copped a plea deal on the eve of trial, Guerra took his chances and won a stunning acquittal for the two murders and racketeering conspiracy charges. But after receiving Townes's tough sentence, he ended up with only a year less than the plea offer of 15 years that he rejected.

The five year old indictment began as a labor racketeering case, but in 2012, after Colombo capo Anthony (Big Anthony) Russo flipped, prosecutors added murder charges against the Persico cousins, and Guerra, who was not named in the original indictment.

With the 15% reduction that is built into all federal prison terms, BF's new 135-month sentence translates as a little less than 10 years behind bars. It's much better than his plea offer, but is still about four years more than what sentencing guidelines would normally call for, according to Ginsberg, who has appealed the sentence to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Guerra, who has been incarcerated since August of 2011, is slated for release in June, 2021. He will be eligible for placement in a halfway house a year earlier.

Teddy Persico was sentenced to 12 years. Michael Persico is still awaiting sentence. He faces a maximum of five years behind bars but his plea deal has a recommended sentence of 37 to 46 months. Michael, 59, was involved in a long soap opera like drama to take back his guilty plea.

Judge Townes rejected Michael Persico's motion to rescind his guilty plea. A special sentencing hearing that was scheduled for September was postponed when Judge Townes took ill. On Tuesday, Chief Judge Carol Amon transferred the case to Judge Dora Irizarry, who has not yet set a new sentencing date for Persico.

Feds Blame Support Staff For Unlawful Subpoenas; Defense Lawyer Doesn't Buy It

The Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office admits issuing three unlawful subpoenas in its probe of a family-run Queens drug ring but insists that the offending subpoenas were "finalized by support staff" and issued by mistake. But a defense attorney says the claim "is not credible" and wants a hearing where the error-prone members of the support staff can explain their remarkable foul-up under oath.

The legal brouhaha in the prosecution of Gregorio and Eleonora Gigliotti and their son Angelo escalated last week after assistant U.S attorney James Miskiewicz blamed unnamed aides for writing unauthorized, improper gag orders on the face of grand jury subpoenas. Miskiewicz also blamed himself for failing to catch the goofs in a letter to Judge Raymond Dearie.

Miskiewicz wrote that only three of the 38 subpoenas in the probe of an international coke smuggling ring linked to 'Ndrangheta, an Italian organized crime group, contained the improper language: "YOU ARE HEREBY DIRECTED NOT TO DISCLOSE THE EXISTENCE OF THIS SUBPOENA, AS IT MAY IMPEDE AN ONGOING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION."

The prosecutor's four-page letter — which was filed under seal but ordered unsealed by Dearie after lawyers for The New York Times objected — contains several redactions because of a continuing federal investigation into the drug ring the Gigliottis allegedly ran out of their Corona, Queens Italian restairant, Cucino A Modo Mio.

"The inclusion of such language was inadvertent and unintentional," wrote Miskiewicz, adding that faulty subpoenas were not in line with the policy of his office which now tells recipients "PLEASE DO NOT DISCLOSE" the subpoena in a separate letter to "avoid any appearance that the language carries with it any judicial authority."

"We challenge that claim," was the prompt retort by Angelo Gigliotti's lawyer, Gerald McMahon, who stated that the prosecutor's letter "leaves many questions unanswered and presents facts which are scarcely credible."

"It stretches credulity to believe that a secretary or paralegal, on his or her own accord, would type, in capital letters, on a grand jury subpoena an unauthorized order of nondisclosure," wrote McMahon, who also argued that it was unlikely that "a federal prosecutor" would sign a grand jury subpoena without reading it.

In addition, wrote McMahon, if the mistake was "inadvertent and unintentional" why didn't Miskiewicz make that "known to the Court during oral argument on October 8, 2015 — the day after the Court issued an electronic order demanding a report concerning the issuance of the improper subpoenas?"

McMahon, along with lawyers for Gregorio and Eleonora Gigliotti have asked Dearie to suppress the fruits of all the unlawfully issued subpoenas. Miskiewicz and his co-prosecutors say that remedy is drastic and uncalled for since the government has informed the recipients they are free to discuss the subpoenas with the defendants or any other entities.

Judge Dearie, who this week ordered prosecutors to furnish him copies of the unlawful subpoenas they issued to an accountant for the Gigliottis and two other unidentified recipients, has not yet decided whether or not to suppress the evidence obtained by the unlawful subpoenas.

[Pogo The Clown]

But only something on the order of a collective brain spasm can explain why not one single juror held out for more than two days before acquitting Asaro of all the charges, including the Cotrone extortion.

You got that right.


Thanks for posting this weeks column.


Pogo

[Mukremin]

Thanks for posting mate.

Amazing though, i am still shocked that after all these tapes and evidence that Asaro is a free man..

[Lupara]

Jury tampering, is it possible?

[Mukremin]

Not in this time, not with todays power of the mob. No. Must be a combination of several factors i think. People have enough of turncoats, badly handling of the case by the prosecution. I don't know credit could be given to the defense?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thx for posting.

[Wiseguy]

Seems to me the average juror has the IQ of a lima bean.

https://youtu.be/PvqVylRw_kc

[Pogo The Clown]

Jury tampering, is it possible?

The thought of jury tampering entered my mind as well. It is unlikely but you never know. I wasn't surprised that he beat the murder charge (the evidence there was weak and that police report really damaged the prosecutions claims) but it is unbelievable that he wasn't convicted of the extortion and loansharking charges.


Pogo

[Ivan]

The "juries are finally sick of rats" hypothesis makes the most sense to me.

[Pogo The Clown]

The "juries are finally sick of rats" hypothesis makes the most sense to me.

But how would they know about rats? This jury was carefully screened to weed out anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the mob. Even if some with prior knowledge managed to get through it is hard to believe that they would have influenced the whole jury to aquit on everything.


Pogo

[Ivan]

The "juries are finally sick of rats" hypothesis makes the most sense to me.

But how would they know about rats? This jury was carefully screened to weed out anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the mob. Even if some with prior knowledge managed to get through it is hard to believe that they would have influenced the whole jury to aquit on everything.

Okay, didn't know that.

[SonnyBlackstein]

The "juries are finally sick of rats" hypothesis makes the most sense to me.

But how would they know about rats? This jury was carefully screened to weed out anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the mob.

Severely disagree.

Everyone knows the days of John Gotti, the glory days of the mob are long dead.
Tell me you live in NYC and youve never heard of let alone watched an episode of the Sopranos.
To state you live in NYC or the tristate and say you have no knowledge that the mob is well past its day I would submit is patently false.
You just have to open your eyes and see Italian ghettos vanish to know Italian crime is no comparison to what it was. Thats basic common sense.

Personally I think the jury saw a headline hungry DA chasing a relic of a bygone era in the form of an old man by a whore (fucks for money) of a cousin who threw his own son to the wolves for pennies to the dollar.

[Bruno187]

Nice avatar Blackstein. He's both a true intellectual and a real gentleman.

[Cheech]

GL is very disappointed about Asaro. Geez Louise. Who writes these? The Feds ?

[Pogo The Clown]

Severely disagree.

Everyone knows the days of John Gotti, the glory days of the mob are long dead.
Tell me you live in NYC and youve never heard of let alone watched an episode of the Sopranos.
To state you live in NYC or the tristate and say you have no knowledge that the mob is well past its day I would submit is patently false.
You just have to open your eyes and see Italian ghettos vanish to know Italian crime is no comparison to what it was. Thats basic common sense.

Personally I think the jury saw a headline hungry DA chasing a relic of a bygone era in the form of an old man by a whore (fucks for money) of a cousin who threw his own son to the wolves for pennies to the dollar.

The jurros were screened on previous mob knowledge. People who had seen Goodfellas, the Sopranos, I think the Godfather etc, were weeded out. Even still I would say the average New Yorker has no idea about the mob or even knows who John Gotti is. He was barely a blip on the radar 25 years ago and Americans have very short memories and attention spans.


Pogo