Gangland:12/17/15

[Dellacroce]

December 17, 2015 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Jailed Gangster: Turncoat's Secret Deal With Feds Robbed Me Of A Fair Trial

He's already done his time — nine long years — for a racketeering conviction that included a slew of bank heists. But mob associate Edmund (Eddie) Boyle has filed an intriguing motion to set aside his conviction on the grounds that a key government witness lied about a "secret sentencing deal" for his cooperation that he had with a top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.

Ironically, the key evidence Boyle cites in his court papers comes from Gary Villanueva, a noted defense lawyer on a panel of attorneys chosen by Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson to probe scores of suspected wrongful state murder convictions in the borough of churches — a review that so far has led to the reversal of 14 guilty verdicts from 1987 through the year 2000.

Adding to the irony is that Villanueva isn't on Boyle's side. He represents Gerard (Skeevy) Bellafiore — a controversial mob turncoat who is the linchpin of Boyle's claim. He alleges that prosecutors knowingly allowed Bellafiore to lie about a deal he had with then-assistant U.S. attorney Greg Andres for a specific prison term when he took the stand at Boyle's 2005 trial.

In court papers filed with Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Sterling Johnson, Boyle's lawyer claims that at Bellafiore's sentencing in 2011, Villanueva disclosed that his client "was promised a 41-month sentence by AUSA Andres before Boyle's trial, and had been granted bail as a result of the Government intervention." Andres, who joined a top Manhattan law firm in 2012 after a two-year-stint as a Deputy Attorney General for Eric Holder, was a supervisor at the time. Andres also tried major cases, and convicted Bonanno boss Joseph Massino of murder and racketeering.

Citing the alleged secret deal, and related "prosecutorial misconduct" that was also revealed at Bellafiore's February 8, 2011 sentencing, attorney Anthony DiPietro has asked Johnson to toss Boyle's conviction because prosecutors "violated his due process rights to a fair trial and tainted the accuracy of the jury's determination of his guilt."

Johnson originally gave Boyle 151 months for racketeering and several 1990s bank burglaries. The judge later reduced the sentence to 128 months. He has been weighing Boyle's motion since February. Even though Boyle, 50, completed his sentence in 2013, a win could mean a lot since he is serving 20 years for a separate Manhattan Federal Court racketeering conviction that was added to the prison term Johnson meted out. DiPietro won't talk about it, but the Gambino gangster's obvious hope is that prison officials would credit those years to his Manhattan conviction.

Bellafiore flipped right after his arrest in 2000 and was released on bail in 2003. When asked at Boyle's trial, whether he had reveived any promises about what his sentence would be, he answered "No." He also denied having "any idea how much time" behind bars he was going to receive in return for his cooperation, according to the court papers.

DiPietro wrote that when Bellafiore was confronted on cross-examination about letters he had sent the FBI, prosecutors, and the court demanding his release in return for his cooperation, the cooperator testified the "demand letters" were "jokes." He said officials did not tell him when he "would be home," only that he "would be able to apply for a bail application after 18 months," DiPietro wrote.

One of Bellafiore's "jokes," the lawyer wrote, was a jailhouse letter he sent to the federal judge in his case, Edward Korman, stating that another former organized crime prosecutor, James Walden, had told him: "I would be home now, or on bail, a long time ago." Walden, of Walden Macht & Haran LLP, told Gang Land: "It didn't happen."

Six years later, however, when Villanueva was arguing for leniency at Bellafiore's sentencing, he stated that his client's claims were no joke.

Villanueva told Korman that two years before Boyle's trial, the feds were ecstatic that Bellafiore was a "stellar cooperator" who helped authorities nail 43 defendants for a variety of crimes. His cooperation, the lawyer said, had begun "immediately" following his arrest and that resulted in his release on bail.

"In 2003," said Villanueva, according to a transcript of the 2011 sentencing, "the government called me up and said, 'You know Bellafiore's been in jail too long. He's done too well. He's done 41 months and we don't think any judge would give him more than 41 months, given the level of his cooperation to date.' And on the government's motion, he was released."

DiPietro argued that Villanueva's words showed that the feds had already made up their minds even before Bellafiore testified in Boyle's case. He stated that the prosecution knew "that Bellafiore's testimony was false since it had conveyed to Bellafiore two years before Boyle's trial that he would likely receive a sentence of 41 months in prison, and had put such sentencing plans into motion when advocating for his release on bail."

The lawyer noted that at Bellafiore's sentencing, during a discussion with the prosecutor about an appropriate prison term for his client, Korman stated: "Well, I think you can say he was released from custody because Mr. Andres thought 41 months was more than what he would (receive.)"

But by 2011, when he appeared for sentencing, Bellafiore's situation had changed drastically following his release on bail eight years earlier.

He was arrested in Florida in 2009 for a slew of bank robberies and other crimes, and as he stood for sentencing before Korman, an angry federal judge in the Sunshine State had already hit him with a 78-month sentence.

In addition, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office had breached his cooperation agreement, and noted that Bellafiore's official sentencing guidelines now called for a recommended prison term of up to 181 months — 12 more years behind bars.

"Shockingly," DiPietro wrote, the government took "no position with respect to what Bellafiore's ultimate sentence" should be at the sentencing proceeding, even though the turncoat had clearly violated his agreement by committing new crimes while out on bail. Instead, the lawyer wrote, the prosecutor stated that she agreed "one hundred percent" with the judge's assertion that "Mr. Bellafiore's cooperation … should be taken into account" when he imposed sentence.

At Boyle's trial, DiPietro wrote, "the prosecution relied extensively on Bellafiore's misleading testimony." In its closing argument, the government misled jurors to believe that Bellafiore had an "incentive to tell the truth" because he knew he could "expect a sentence of almost 20 years in jail" if he lied and prosecutors found out about it.

In reality, prosecutors had informed Bellafiore through his lawyer two years earlier that he "would likely receive a maximum sentence of 41 months," wrote DiPietro.

The lawyer argued that "Bellafiore's cooperation agreement had no significant meaning at the time of Boyle's trial" because he "had already earned his stripes with" Brooklyn prosecutors "and would receive a sentencing reduction regardless of whether he ever breached his cooperation agreement."

"It certainly wasn't true, where prosecutors at Boyle's trial argued that 'if the government finds out that somebody is lying … they lose their deal, and they do all the (prison) time they were originally looking at, plus they can be charged with new crimes,'" DiPietro wrote.

In the end, Bellafiore didn't get the 41-month "time served" sentence that Andres allegedly promised him. Legally, Judge Korman could not give him less than five years since he had pleaded guilty to using a gun during his bank jobs. The judge gave him 61 months.

Villanueva declined to discuss the case. Andres, of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, did not respond to a Gang Land request for comment.

In the government's response, assistant U.S. attorney Rena Paul wrote that Boyle's papers were merely "a vehicle for relitigating old issues" and should be dismissed. She ignored Boyle's specific allegations regarding Bellafiore's "secret sentencing deal" with Andres, and argued that Johnson had "twice considered and rejected" prior motions, and should do the same with the one filed by attorney DiPietro.

Sex-With-Minor Charges Against FBI Mob Informer Still Sealed After All These Years

Lawyers for Charles Hughes, the troubled informer who agreed to work undercover in an FBI investigation of the mob-linked waste hauling industry after he was arrested for soliciting sex with a minor, are slated to explain to a federal appeals court today why the seven year old records of Hughes's arrest and conviction should remain sealed.

Hughes, 45, was arrested on August 28, 2008 when he showed up at a Westchester motel well-prepared for a tryst with a person he believed was "a 15-year-old girl," someone he had been talking to on the phone and chatting with online for two months. Sources say the 15-year-old girl was actually a female police officer on a joint FBI-Westchester Police Department task force.

The office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, which cut a deal with Hughes that led to a labor racketeering indictment of 29 defendants nearly three years ago, initially opposed any unsealing of the 2008 case. The office dropped its opposition to unsealing in July, following an appeal by Gang Land to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

But instead of moving to unseal the file, the office deferred to lawyers for Hughes to continue the fight, a move that flies in the face of strict laws enacted by Congress to protect children from convicted child predators as well as Justice Department policy regarding openness in the courts.

Daniel Habib, the attorney for Hughes, initially told the court he would not take part in oral arguments "in light of the sensitivity of the matters under seal" and the "risk of inadvertent disclosure" that could occur. But he changed his mind, he wrote, when the appeals court agreed to hear oral arguments by Gang Land's lawyer, Richard Dolan, of Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP.

In court papers, Dolan argued that the continued sealing was "a denial of the public's First Amendment right to obtain access to the files of a federal criminal case that has been pending for seven years."

Any need for sealing the prosecution of Hughes ended when his identity was determined nearly three years ago by Genovese gangster Carmine (Papa Smurf) Franco and 28 codefendants aligned with three crime families when they were all arrested based on the undercover work by Hughes, Dolan wrote.

"Obviously," wrote Dolan, "they presented the most immediate threat to Hughes' safety. Thus, any threat to the safety of Hughes and his family, based on his role as the informant in Franco, has already been addressed by whatever protective measures the Government provided to Hughes during the Franco prosecution."

"Presumably, given the position taken by the Government, those protective measures are still in force," wrote Dolan. "The cat is out of the bag and there is nothing left about Hughes' identity as the defendant in U.S. v John Doe to justify further sealing."

Luchese Wiseguy Looks To Arrest Of Suffolk County Police Chief For Help

Citing last week's arrest of Police Chief James Burke as evidence of "rampant corruption" in Suffolk County law enforcement, an attorney for Luchese mobster Carmine Avellino wants the 2010 arrest records of two former cops who were hit with corruption charges at the same time Burke was "supervising" the investigation that led to Avellino's indictment.

Both former law enforcement officials, police officer Robert Dito and detective investigator John White, were arrested three months after the time frame when Avellino and two cohorts allegedly tried to extort $100,000 from a Staten Island man. The lawyer says he need the records "to properly defend Mr. Avellino."

In a request he filed Monday with Brooklyn Federal Judge Sandra Townes, attorney Scott Leemon wrote that Dito was arrested for alerting the "initial target, Robert Spatafora" about search warrants that cops planned on gambling locations during the "investigation of this very case."

The case, wrote Leemon, appears "rife with corruption from the start." He asked Townes to approve defense subpoenas for witness statements and other records relating to the arrests of Dito and White that are maintained by the Police Department and District Attorney in Suffolk County.

Following the arrests, DA Thomas Spota told Newsday that the pair, who were each charged in a separate complaint and were not codefendants, were arrested following an investigation into suspected leaks of information to "certain people who are part of organized crime."

The two law enforcement agents had already been cited for prior involvements with wiseguys.

White, 66, is a former NYPD lieutenant who worked as an investigator for the DA's office. He was arraigned on charges of assisting "an illegal gambling operation controlled by organized crime" on October 6, 2010. But Gang Land could find no record that he was convicted, and a spokeswoman for the DA's office was unable to provide a final disposition by press time yesterday.

In January of 2011, Dito, 62, was arrested along with more than 100 other mob-connected defendants by the FBI on Mafia Takedown Day on numerous federal charges stemming from his 2010 arrest in Suffolk County. He pleaded guilty to gambling charges in 2011. He was sentenced to six months behind bars. He served his time last year.

Prosecutors Maria Melendez and Celia Cohen have not yet responded to Leemon's filing, but Gang Land expects the feds to oppose the request as little more than a legal fishing expedition.

Final pretrial defense motions, and the government's replies, are slated to be resolved by next month and a tentative trial date has been scheduled for March 7. Along with mob associates Michael Capra, 50, and bother Daniel, 57, the 71-year-old Avellino is charged with trying to shake down $100,000 from a fellow septuagenarian victim between January and July of 2010.

Technically, they each face up to 20 years behind bars if convicted.

[Pogo The Clown]

Thanks for posting this weeks coulmn Dellacroce.


Pogo

[Garbageman]

Thanks Dellacroce. Can't wait to see those Hughes records unsealed =) that piece of shit.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[Mukremin]

Thanks for posting man

[Mikeyb211]

Hey guys im new to RD just wanted to say hello..and thanks Dellacroce dor posting my friend...ive enjoyed your posts on gangster bb for a while and glad to see a familiar face here, cheers and happy holidays fellas