Gangland 11/3/2022

[Dr031718]

Feds Say Loanshark Threatened Relatives Of A Witness; Defense Says Video Says Otherwise
Chris Bantis, a tough talking gangster who was convicted of loansharking after he was tape recorded boasting of working for top echelon Gambino mobster Michael (Mickey Boy) Paradiso, goes on trial next week for threatening several relatives of a loanshark victim who helped the feds convict him and send him to prison eight years ago.

The 55-year-old Bantis, who has been held without bail as a dangerous ex-con since his arrest 14 months ago, has steadfastly maintained his innocence of witness retaliation. He declined to cop a plea deal, even after the feds upped the ante and added a virtually indefensible loansharking charge to his case based on text messages they found in his cell phone following his arrest.

Knowledgeable sources say that Bantis is so bent on proving his innocence of the witness retaliation charge that he plans to plead guilty to the new loansharking charge today at a status conference in Brooklyn Federal Court, and go to trial next week on the retaliation charge that carries a possible prison term of 20 years upon conviction.

According to his indictment, in August and September of last year, Bantis threatened the sister, a brother, and a nephew of a loanshark victim who tape recorded him and then spoke in court about his plight in 2016 on the day that Bantis, who'd been arrested and jailed in 2014, was sentenced to 42 months in prison by Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Vitaliano.

In June of 2018, Bantis allegedly began harassing his victim's sister by standing outside her store and staring in the window. But he stopped when he was warned that he was violating his supervised release. But in August of last year, the feds say, he returned to the woman's store, and told her he wanted to kill her brother, who was a "rat," and stated he was going "to shoot (her) in the head."

On September 8 of last year, according to an arrest complaint by FBI agent Paul Tambrino, Bantis showed up at the store and "shouted" at the woman and her nephew from outside the store, told them that the family members of loanshark victim John Doe #1 were "rats," and dared the nephew to "come outside and fight."

"Bantis also placed his hand over his waistband and stated to (the nephew) in sum and substance," Tambrino wrote: "I have a gun and I will kill you."

During the angry confrontation, Tambrino wrote, "Bantis reached into a (dark-colored duffle bag,) removed a pipe wrapped in a towel, and brandished the pipe as a weapon."

The following day, according to prosecutor Lindsey Oken, Bantis returned to the store "and again threatened (John Doe #1's sister) while placing his hand over his waistband" and was arrested by police who responded to a 911 call from the woman.

That same day, Bantis was arrested on a federal complaint from Tambrino, who had been involved in the defendant's 2016 loansharking conviction. Bantis was detained as a danger to the community after prosecutor Oken noted in a detention memo that the defendant had previously admitted he possessed a handgun and knew how to use it.
"I've got a .45 in my chest," Bantis had told a second loanshark victim in 2014, she wrote. "I will fuckin' shoot non-stop, that's it, do you understand what I'm saying to you? It's gonna be a fuckin' war, alright? But I'm gonna be a fuckin' hunter."

In his next breath, Bantis, according to a court filing in his earlier case, boasted about his ties to Mickey Boy Paradiso and Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro, a soldier who was convicted along with then boss Peter Gotti of plotting to kill turncoat underboss, Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano, and told his victim he was going to enjoy killing him.

"Twelve years with Huck, I was, then when Huck fucking went . . . I was with fucking Mickey, alright? I'm just letting you know that, alright? And then now go see my friend and do what you fucking gotta do. Me, I know what I gotta do, I'm gonna fucking hurt you, you mother-fucker, I'm gonna hurt you, alright?"

Over objections from defense lawyers Nora Hirozawa and Marissa Sherman, Judge Vitaliano has ruled that prosecutor Oken will be able to tell the jury about Bantis's 2016 loansharking conviction, and John Doe #1's role in helping the government arrest and convict him to establish the motive behind his alleged threats to retaliate against John Doe #1 and his family members.
Vitaliano also ruled that the government can play taped remarks Bantis told family members in calls from prison soon after his arrest in which he said the feds had him "dead to rights," and that he "made a fucking mistake" and "should've copped out yesterday" when talking about the incident that led to his arrest.

But the judge agreed with the defense that the theory of "completeness" mandates that Bantis's follow-up remark that "There's gonna be ten of them up there lying, saying I had this, this, this, the whole nine yards," must be included "to provide the jury the entire context of the statement."

This statement, the judge wrote, "suggests that Bantis's pessimism about his prospects at trial may have been due to anticipated dishonesty by witnesses. The jury ought to decide for themselves if this is persuasive."

A key aspect of his defense is a surveillance video that shows a young man approach Bantis across the street from the sister's store "and lunge towards him menacingly" and return moments later "with a baseball bat," after Bantis has continued walking along the street, according to attorney Hirozawa, who submitted a few still shots from the video. "Based on this surveillance footage," she wrote, "the young man, and not Mr. Bantis, appears to be initial aggressor."
Bantis is seen "carrying a black gym bag with a white towel on top, tucked under the handles of the bag" and he "appears to be looking back over his left shoulder and speaking to someone" when a "young man, dressed in a gray shirt with red sleeves" then "lunges at Mr. Bantis, and pulls back his arm, as if he is about to punch Mr. Bantis," who ducks his head and cowers, she wrote.

Then, as the young man walks away, "Bantis sets his bag down on the sidewalk" and then "spends approximately 10 seconds unzipping and rummaging through the bag before removing a wooden stick," Hirozawa wrote. Then he walks about ten feet, "stands near a light post," where he begins "gesticulating with the stick (and presumably yelling)" across the street where the "young man appears to have returned."

Bantis never crosses the street, approach the sister's store, and there is no "physical contact between Mr. Bantis and the young man or any other individual," the attorney wrote. "Bantis then places the stick back in his gym bag, and continues walking down the block, in the same direction," Hirozawa wrote.

"Suddenly," the attorney continued, "the young man in the gray and red shirt returns, walking across the street in the direction of Mr. Bantis with a baseball bat, stands in the middle of the street, with his feet pointed" toward where Bantis has walked, "before again returning across the street."

"At no point does the surveillance video show Mr. Bantis place his hand over his waistband, and the 'pipe wrapped in a towel' was not a pipe at all, nor was it wrapped in a towel."

The video ends, Hirozawa noted, with Bantis, who lives two blocks away from the store, continuing to walk towards his home.

Appeals Court To Bklyn Federal Judge: Decide Your 30-Month Old Case In The Next 21 Days

Sometimes, a denial of a pro se motion by the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals, like the one Colombo associate Michael (Mikey Spat) Spataro got last week, isn't all bad. Spataro, who's been locked up on a very iffy murder conspiracy conviction since 2004, would have preferred a win. But the loss guarantees him a better result than he got after he won an unusual appeals victory back in April of 2020.

Spataro's ultimate goal is a ruling that ends his prison stay long before his mandatory release date in 2025. But his more immediate goal is to obtain bail while his appeal is pending as soon as possible so he can help care for his 89-year-old father, who has lymphoma cancer, for whatever time his dad has left.

It's a long shot, but Spataro now has some hope. That's because the denial of his "mandamus petition to compel" is final only if Brooklyn Federal Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, the most recent judge to rule on his case, decides his pending motions by November 17. One of Spat's motions is for bail. The other is to vacate a gun charge conviction and reduce the 24 year prison term he's been serving since 2004 by the 10 years he got for the so-called 924c gun rap.

The appeals court stated in its one sentence, October 27 ruling that "upon due consideration," it would permit Spataro to renew his mandamus petition with the 2d Circuit "if the district court fails to rule on the pending motions within 21 days of the entry of this order."

Spataro was convicted of racketeering, murder conspiracy, and weapons possession in the attempted rubout of wiseguy Joseph (Joe Camp) Campanella, who was shot in July 2001 by the hit team of Colombo mobster Vincent (Chickie) DeMartino and associate Giovanni (John the Barber) Floridia. Spataro, who was nowhere near the scene of the crime, is the only person in the case who's behind bars.

Getting a judge to make a decision may not seem like a big deal. But it is for Mikey Spat since even if DeArcy Hall rules against him he'll be able to appeal her negative rulings. But as it stands now, Spataro's case is in a legal limbo with no chance of success on the merits since the judge has ignored numerous requests by him and his federal defenders to decide the issues. They are more than 30 months old, have been fully briefed and were argued in March of 2021.

In his filing with the appeals court, Spataro cited numerous reasons why, based largely on the pro bono investigative work of former U.S. Marshal Michael Pizzi, he was wrongly convicted in the case and believes that DeArcy Hall should rule in his favor. But he stressed he is "not asking the District Court (to) decide in a particular way, only to decide the matter on the merits."

Unlike last week's ruling, the decision by the 2d Circuit in April of 2020 that granted Mikey Spat permission to file a second habeas corpus motion to vacate his gun conviction with trial Judge Sterling Johnson was an open ended decision with no time limit attached. That is the usual modus operandi in federal court.

It took the 2d Circuit four years to grant Spataro's "habeas" motion. The case was reassigned to DeArcy Hall when Judge Johnson, who died last month, recused himself from the case a day before a June 30 hearing he had scheduled on the motion.

Spataro sought help from the 2d Circuit in July, a month after he filed an "urgent request for a decision and/or bail" and told Judge DeArcy Hall that his dad was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. Release, he stated, would enable him to "provide the help and support that my father needs during this difficult time of his life." In that filing, Spataro wrote that he "feel(s) strongly that I need to be there for him, especially since I was unable to be there for my mom before she passed away in 2019."

In his appeal to the 2d Circuit, Spataro noted that he had no legal "remedy to get home" while his mom was dying. But he does now "while his father's health wanes." Mikey Spat argued that by failing to rule on his motion since she heard oral arguments in March of last year, Judge DeArcy Hall "has caused and is continuing to cause (him) irreparable harm."

That is so, he wrote, because "the issues in this case are no longer complicated." Several federal judges in Brooklyn and Manhattan have granted relief to others who were wrongly sentenced to additional time due to "924c gun convictions," Spataro wrote, arguing that "delays" by DeArcy Hall' in his case were "both egregious and callous and thus beg for this court's swift intervention."

Judge DeArcy Hall, Spataro wrote, quickly denied motions for bail he filed in late 2020 and in early 2021, but since last December 1, she has "made no moves in more than six months" to make a "decision on the merits" or decide whether to grant his third motion for bail based on new circumstances in the case.

"The court has ignored repeated requests to reach a decision in a timely manner," Spataro complained. "Instead," he wrote, "the petitioner is expected to wait with no end in sight."

Jailed Michael Michael Waits — And Waits — For The Next Shoe To Drop

During the 14 months he was locked up on a federal weapons charge, Mileta (Michael Michael) Miljanic, the 62-year-old reputed leader of a violent Serbian-American organized crime gang known as Grupo Amerika, waited for federal prosecutors in Manhattan to formally charge him and a powerful Gambino capo with racketeering in the construction industry.

Eventually, Miljanic was hit with the less-than dramatic charge of conducting a $154,000 fraud against the Small Business Administration. He is still waiting for the feds to charge him and Gambino capo Louis (Bo) Filippelli as construction industry racketeers. The feds aren't keeping their plans secret: They claim Miljanic's firm, MDP Rebar Solutions, is a shell company used to funnel "millions of dollars to members and associates of organized crime."

Miljanic and Filippelli were publicly identified two years ago as gangsters who worked together in the construction industry. Assistant U.S. attorney Jason Swergold, the prosecutor who has kept Michael Michael behind bars on the SBA fraud charges, linked the duo to construction industry racketeering in a court filing in the bribery case of former plumbers union official James Cahill.

In a document filed in Miljanic's SBA fraud case, Swergold has stated that Miljanic is a major target of an ongoing, "larger investigation" by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office. The prosecutor said Michael Michael knows from discovery he has received in that case that the feds have "nearly two years of wiretaps" on his phone that tie him to crimes with the Gambino family.

Filippelli, 53, has not been publicly identified as a target of the same investigation as Miljanic. But sources say that he and several other Gambino wiseguys and associates are targets of the same wide-ranging investigation of racketeering in the construction industry throughout the metropolitan area.

Back in March of 2020, according to Swergold, Cahill was tape recorded telling a wired-up informer that Miljanic and Filippelli had become fast friends after Cahill had gotten the Gambino mobster "to intervene" with the Serbian gang leader to block "a death threat" that Grupo Amerika had leveled against a Chill nephew.

"So what does Louis do?" Cahill was quoted by Swergold as saying, "He goes partners with Michael Michael in the construction business and they're like pigs in shit."

Miljanic and Filippelli have also been linked together as construction industry racketeers by NYPD Detective William Dionne, a member of the task force in the larger investigation that Swergold has alluded to in court filings in the SBA case against Michael Michael.

Dionne stated in a complaint used last year by the feds to arrest Miljanic on federal gun charges that investigators who searched his apartment in February 2021 found a handgun in his nightstand. Dionne, an author of the complaint used by the feds to arrest Michael Michael for the SBA fraud this year, stated that $6.8 million passed though MDP Rebar's bank accounts between December of 2018 and May of 2021.

In the SBA fraud complaint, Dionne wrote that about $1.5 million of those funds were "disbursed to the bank accounts for two construction management companies" that were controlled by Filippelli, and about $10,000 of the loot was "disbursed to a company" that was controlled by Filippelli’s girlfriend.

Last month, during a status conference in the SBA fraud case, Swergold told Judge Philip Halpern that the government and Miljanic's lawyer Joseph Corozzo were discussing a possible plea deal and would report back on the progress next week.

But the defense attorney didn't sound optimistic about that when Gang Land contacted him yesterday.

"My client is not in a position to plead guilty to these charges at the current time," said Corozzo. "I will be able to prove without too much difficulty that MDP Rebar is not a shell company, but was a viable business that worked on numerous jobsites in the area," the lawyer continued. "And I believe I can refute the SBA fraud charge against Mr. Miljanic, which is my current focus."

[DonPeppino386]

Thanks for posting!

[Dapper_Don]

thanks for posting

[Tonyd621]

Can someone who knows law tell me why the fbi gets involved in a single loansharking charge? Is it because it's a federal charge? I mean it just seems small to get involved in this Bantis crime. I can seem if it was multiple charges and RICO but one loansharking charge

[TommyGambino]

Maybe they go for Filipelli at the same time as Frank Camuso

[Johnny1and1]

Can someone who knows law tell me why the fbi gets involved in a single loansharking charge? Is it because it's a federal charge? I mean it just seems small to get involved in this Bantis crime. I can seem if it was multiple charges and RICO but one loansharking charge

It's a hammer. The charge is "extortionate means...." That charge is up to 20 years. There is a whole series of bookmaking and gambling charges, but most commonly those charges are up to 5 years.

[Amershire_Ed]

Thanks for posting

[NYNighthawk]

Surprised at Capeci for not mentioning Fr. Louis Gigante's passing.

[Tonyd621]

Can someone who knows law tell me why the fbi gets involved in a single loansharking charge? Is it because it's a federal charge? I mean it just seems small to get involved in this Bantis crime. I can seem if it was multiple charges and RICO but one loansharking charge

It's a hammer. The charge is "extortionate means...." That charge is up to 20 years. There is a whole series of bookmaking and gambling charges, but most commonly those charges are up to 5 years.

Thank for the prompt response J1

[Tonyd621]

If I had a nickel for everytime the government said they have a pending indictment against "made guys."
So let's the govt has been building a case for year(s) now against the current hierachy of the Luccheses, Camuso, Fillippeli... etc

[Don sterling]

Thanks for posting