Al Trucchio

[B.]

Thanks for sharing the old Ganglands, Cheech. It's always nice to look back on them with new eyes after time has passed.

Capeci brings up how Licata wondered about DiMaria and the Corrozzos, but I wonder why Capeci left out Joe Watts. In the original recording Joe Watts is mentioned alongside the other names when they discuss who is going to run the Gambino family when those guys get out. Obviously Watts wasn't a member but it says something to me that even a Newark-based Philly member mentioned him in context with Gambino leaders.

Also does anyone know if Howard Santos is related to the Santos brothers who associated with Jimmy Burke? They're all from the same area and those Santos brothers were deeply involved with Burke, Asaro, the Vario crew, etc.

[Browniety86]

Thanks for sharing the old Ganglands, Cheech. It's always nice to look back on them with new eyes after time has passed.

Capeci brings up how Licata wondered about DiMaria and the Corrozzos, but I wonder why Capeci left out Joe Watts. In the original recording Joe Watts is mentioned alongside the other names when they discuss who is going to run the Gambino family when those guys get out. Obviously Watts wasn't a member but it says something to me that even a Newark-based Philly member mentioned him in context with Gambino leaders.

Also does anyone know if Howard Santos is related to the Santos brothers who associated with Jimmy Burke? They're all from the same area and those Santos brothers were deeply involved with Burke, Asaro, the Vario crew, etc.

See this is just one of countless examples that speak to the respect Joe Watts was given not only in the Gambino Family but throughout Cosa Nostra in general...just a powerhouse of a gangster

[Browniety86]

Sources: FBI Snitch Was In Deadly Home Invasion Gang
A Gang Land Exclusive

Howard SantosA prized mob informant whose undercover work led to the bust of 21 Gambino crime family defendants in this year’s massive Mafia takedown was part of a deadly home invasion gang at the same time he was working for the feds, sources tell Gang Land.

Howard Santos, a veteran hoodlum who spent six months wearing a wire for the FBI against his mob pals, took part in a botched push-in robbery in which the son of a popular Queens pizzeria owner was gunned down, according to sources.

Court records from the federal case against a host of Mafia big shots caught on tape by Santos show that the brutal September 9, 2009 slaying of Gerardo Antoniello, 29, occurred during a three-day lull in recordings made by the informant. The next day, September 10, the undercover gangster was back at his secret law enforcement task, snaring four defendants on tape.

Santos is also alleged to have taken part in another home invasion where an 84-year-old man later died from injuries sustained in the robbery, according to court papers filed last week by a defense attorney seeking to win bail for his client, wiseguy Anthony Moscatiello. Santos, wrote lawyer Joseph DiBenedetto, would often “type up his own search warrants” and pose as a police officer or federal agent “to gain entrance” to his victims’ homes.

The Antoniello murder is not cited by DiBenedetto, and Santos has never been charged in connection with the killing. Both the FBI and Santos’s attorney declined all comment. But sources familiar with the case tell Gang Land that Santos served as the “inside man” on the fatal Queens robbery, fingering Romeo Antoniello, owner of Romeo’s Pizza, as the pie man who would arrive home at 10 P.M. in Ozone Park with the day’s cash receipts.

According to police accounts, a duo of armed robbers jumped the elder Antoniello and pistol-whipped him to the ground on his front stoop. Gerardo, whose brother is an NYPD detective, rushed to his father’s aid and was shot in the head. He died the following morning at Jamaica Hospital.

After shooting Gerardo in the head, the robbers fled empty-handed – leaving behind a knapsack and packing tape. Three months later, police charged Rashad Cowan, 31, of the Bronx, and Jason Burrell, 38, of Brooklyn, with murder. Neither defendant is believed to have been the triggerman, however. According to an arrest complaint by Detective William Loschiavo, one of two suspects who are still at large fired the fatal shot as Burrell – the wheelman – and Cowan waited for their cohorts in a getaway car.

Lawyers for the defendants, Edward Schulman and Ken Montgomery, declined to comment when queried by Gang Land, as did the Queens District Attorney’s Office.

Sources tell Gang Land that members of the robbery team, which police say included a woman, knew Santos by the street nickname, “Jay.” The sources add that Santos was involved in numerous home invasion robberies over the years, including several during the months that he wore a wire for the FBI – from June 17, 2009 to January 11, 2010. Santos was wired up for his secret undercover mission after he was charged as part of a ring that stole $1 million in electronic equipment in burglaries of 20 major outlets in New York and New Jersey, including Circuit City and Best Buy.

Alphonse TrucchioRecords in the federal case show that a day after the slaying, Santos caught four gangsters talking about their crimes, including Todd LaBarca, the lone defendant facing murder charges in the federal case. LaBarca is accused of the 2002 slaying of a family drug dealer who tried to cut a higher-ranked gangster out of his fair share of the spoils, according to prosecutors in the case.

Santos’s undercover work was cut short, as Gang Land disclosed last year, when capo Alphonse Trucchio spotted Santos and G-Man Robert Herbster sitting in the gangster’s red BMW on Queens Blvd. near the FBI’s Queens office. Before it ended, however, Santos made 700 hours of tape recordings, snaring 20 of the 21 defendants, including Trucchio and a powerful member of the family’s ruling panel, Bartolomeo (Bobby Glasses) Vernace, and four other mobsters on tape.

In court papers, defense attorney DiBenedetto has sought to paint Santos as a degenerate lacking credibility, using Santos’s own tape-recorded words as evidence. The attorney cited a boast by Santos that he set up a hidden video camera in his Howard Beach apartment to capture him and his then-girlfriend, later wife and mother of their child having sex.

In their reply, Manhattan federal prosecutors Daniel Chung, John Zach and Elie Honig slammed DiBenedetto’s claim that Santos had a role in the death of an 84-year-old man as inaccurate. The “hysterical attacks on Santos” regarding his alleged sexual exploits, they wrote, were “a transparent ploy to generate cheap tabloid headlines” that were irrelevant to the issue at hand: whether his client was a danger to the community and should be granted bail.

Bartolomeo Vernace“The fact of the matter is, Santos, like Moscatiello, has been part of the mob for many years, and has committed numerous violent crimes and drug crimes,” the prosecutors wrote. The informer’s crimes began, they said, when he was under the wing of accused Gambino consigliere Joseph (JoJo) Corozzo, the lead defendant in the racketeering indictment, and continued later after he was under Trucchio.

Asked whether they were aware of allegations that Santos had been involved in the robbery attempt of pizzeria owner Romeo Antoniello that ended in his son’s death, prosecutors declined to comment. Frank Handelman, an attorney for Santos, did not respond to requests for comment.

I'd love to see the transcripts of the wire recordings of Trucchio and Bobby Glasses too...why on Earth was Santos even that close to Vernace to record him is a mystery to me...I understand Al, he was in his crew, but a street boss when Santos was an associate is crazy to me...

[Cheech]

Crazy Al seen Santos with the fbi guy. Coulda been a scene on the Sopranos

[Rocco]

viewtopic.php?p=138523#p138523

In the Stefanelli transcripts Trucchio mentions wanting to be re-introduced to Eric Esposito because he was recently made. Trucchio and other Gambino members went to Esposito's wedding in 2007; Esposito married a Corozzo daughter.

Trucchio is the one who first brings up "Beeps" Centorino, asking how he's doing. Trucchio is also the one who first brings up Centorino being broke, which Licata confirms. Licata jokes about running a "benefit" for him and talks about how Nick Stefanelli has known Centorino a lot of years and brought him a lot of "scores". Stefanelli claims, "I made him rich!"

What I took notice of while reading these scripts was that they mentioned nearly every Newark Philly Crew member with the exception of Nicky O' which leads me to believe that he is no longer involved with the Newark Philly crew anymore..? Freslone's book says Licata and Nicky did not like each other and Licata didn't want Nicky to get made at the time. But I remember reading on here yrs ago that Nicky was spotted at a Philly Xmas party..though that was probably a decade ago...

[Pogo The Clown]

Licata and Oliveri were indicted together in 1998 for running bookmaking operation among other things.


Pogo

[chin_gigante]

Olivieri was mentioned in that NJSCI report from 2018 saying he and Fazzini had no-show jobs at a scrapyard

[Pmac2]

Joe watts can't be in good standing anymore. I don't know if he switched but that was a lot of smoke even his lawyer f Lee Bailey didn't stick up for him but he didn't give anyone up. I bet the bosses probably told him stay away or maybe Marino and them went to bat for them saying why take the rat Sammy the bulls word over a guy who just 12 yrs for us

[AAA-DK]

AL is a big money guy... quiet not a violent idiot like some but i dont doubt he will handle business. his father was a shooter. and an earner. as far as their beefs etc their all neighborhood guys, they bump into each other. a lot of guys on the streets are running with bonnanos and gambinos together. over here. shits bound to happen.but ronnie G didnt abuse AL ,trust me not happening. frank radice yeah. but entirely different crews. those ozpk boys where viscious. and not afraid to kill. even if AL didnt pull the trigger himself he didnt have to go far to find someone who would. their wouldve been a war and honestly dont think ronnie g crew would come out on top. as far as shelved i dont know the truth, but he is respected. he keeps his mouth shut and does his time all while earning like a real gangster. but that gets overlooked these days. the administrations wouldve went ot bat for a guy like that over a beef in before times. now its a shit show.

thanks for the clarification

[Etna]

How many crews operate in that Howard Beach/Ozone Park/Woodhaven area of Queens? It sounds like the Fatico/Gotti crew was split to a few? The Asaro/Giallanzo crew and maybe the Colombos and Genoveses?

[johnny_scootch]

How many crews operate in that Howard Beach/Ozone Park/Woodhaven area of Queens? It sounds like the Fatico/Gotti crew was split to a few? The Asaro/Giallanzo crew and maybe the Colombos and Genoveses?

Ciro Perrone for the Genovese

[queensnyer]

How many crews operate in that Howard Beach/Ozone Park/Woodhaven area of Queens? It sounds like the Fatico/Gotti crew was split to a few? The Asaro/Giallanzo crew and maybe the Colombos and Genoveses?

There are at least 2 Gambino crews... Gurino. And Corrozzo. a bonanno crew. Asaro. Luchese crew and Colombo crew. Based in Hb... eh. The brooklyn luchesse crew has a few members living in the area. Long island crew as well.

[aray22]

How many crews operate in that Howard Beach/Ozone Park/Woodhaven area of Queens? It sounds like the Fatico/Gotti crew was split to a few? The Asaro/Giallanzo crew and maybe the Colombos and Genoveses?

There are at least 2 Gambino crews... Gurino. And Corrozzo. a bonanno crew. Asaro. Luchese crew and Colombo crew. Based in Hb... eh. The brooklyn luchesse crew has a few members living in the area. Long island crew as well.

If there's a Lucchese crew it must be very recent because Pennisi mentioned they didn't have a Queens crew and were planning on making one and it never came to fruition.

[TommyGambino]

How many crews operate in that Howard Beach/Ozone Park/Woodhaven area of Queens? It sounds like the Fatico/Gotti crew was split to a few? The Asaro/Giallanzo crew and maybe the Colombos and Genoveses?

There are at least 2 Gambino crews... Gurino. And Corrozzo. a bonanno crew. Asaro. Luchese crew and Colombo crew. Based in Hb... eh. The brooklyn luchesse crew has a few members living in the area. Long island crew as well.

Sneakers and monk Sassano?

[Pmac2]

I'd bet he back in the fold and maybe a capo again in the family. The boss would be dumb to keep a younger guy who has the experience down. And the guy had a huge crew and earned.