Gangland 12/1/2022

[Dr031718]

John Meringolo, 48, Rising Star Of The Defense Bar, Dies Too Young. RIP

John MeringoloJohn Meringolo, a rising star of the defense bar whose winning ways in major federal prosecutions brought by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office in recent years made him the buzz of the legal community from New York to Philadelphia, died tragically and suddenly last month.

Meringolo, who was 48, suffered a fatal heart attack during a telephone conversation he was having with a younger attorney he was mentoring on November 16. Meringolo was planning to drive the following day to Philadelphia for the sentencing of family underboss Steven (Handsome Stevie) Mazzone.

"He will be dearly missed." said attorney Anjelica Cappellino, a member of Meringolo's firm for 10 years. "John was an incredible trial lawyer and legal advocate with a larger-than-life courtroom presence. He went above and beyond for his clients and gave 110% of himself to every case. It has been one of my life's greatest privileges to work for him these past years."

Numerous defense lawyer colleagues whose names have appeared in Gang Land — Anthony DiPietro, Seth Ginsberg, Mathew Mari and Gerald McMahon, to name just four — echoed Cappellino's assertions. In addition to being a fierce advocate for his clients, they said that Meringolo's passing was a "tremendous loss" of a "good guy" who would go out of his way to help you if he could.

Meringolo told Gang Land several times over the years that he would never be able to repay lawyers James LaRossa and Martin Geduldig for all the help and guidance they gave him when he was starting out after graduating from New York Law School two decades ago. So it makes sense he was paying it forward by quietly helping several young lawyers who had sought him out.

"It was an absolute privilege to be one of the few lucky young lawyers Meringelo placed under his wing," said Jeremy Iandolo, who was talking to Meringolo when he died.

Jeremy Iandolo told Gang Land that after meeting Meringolo seven months ago, "I started to pick his brain." Meringolo was very generous with his time, he said. "Every morning" and sometimes in the evening, as he did two weeks ago, Meringolo would give "wisdom and guidance" on how Iandolo should "approach certain legal matters" that were on his plate that was "greatly appreciated," said Iandolo.

"He was a firm believer that all young lawyers were missing a value teaching tool, a mentor" and he "often drew back on his younger years" and recalled that he was mentored by LaRossa and Geduldig, said Iandolo. "It seemed," the young lawyer opined, "that he believed he should pay it forward."

"It's a tragedy in so many ways," said lawyer Joseph Corozzo, who first met Meningolo in the late 1980s when he was a defensive end on a championship football team for Nazareth Catholic High School in Brooklyn. Corozzo, who was a running back on the same team eight years earlier, was coaching the team while he was in college.

He was a friend, a colleague, a neighbor, a father of two young boys, and great lawyer who we lost much too soon," said Corozzo. "John's legal talents were just being exposed to the world over the last 10 years," said Corozzo. "He had some great courtroom victories, victories that many lawyers don't have in their entire careers."

Meringolo earned kudos from the defense bar — and ire from the feds — in 2018 for his very effective cross-examination of turncoat Bonanno capo Peter Lovaglio at the Manhattan Federal Court racketeering trial of Philadelphia mob boss Joseph (Skinny) Joey Merlino that ended in a hung jury. Rather than try him again, prosecutors let the mob boss plead guilty to a misdemeanor illegal gambling charge, with a maximum penalty of two years in prison, to the consternation of the trial judge. His 44 codefendants all pleaded guilty to felony charges.

The following year, he won acquittals in two major Manhattan Federal Court cases. Bonanno consigliere John (Porky) Zancocchio was found not guilty at his racketeering trial, and ex-NYPD deputy inspector James Grant was acquitted of bribery. During the Grant trial, Meringolo pushed assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Bell when the prosecutor rushed him outside the courtroom and accused him of badgering a government witness.

After those stunning wins, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office began citing those cases in asking judges, as they did to Judge Analis Torres before the two We Build The Wall trials of Colorado businessman Timothy Shea, to bar Meringolo from questioning the government's motives in arresting a defendant or appealing to jurors' sense of fair play.

In both trials — the jury hung in the first one — prosecutors argued that it was improper for Meringolo to tell jurors that it was "not nice" the way government decided to charge his client with a crime, or that the reason prosecutors gave a scurrilous thug a cooperation agreement to testify against Shea was "not nice in this country." They asked Judge Torres to order Meringolo to refrain from saying that to jurors in his opening or closing remarks. And she did.

Zancocchio and prosecutor Bell were among the hundreds of mourners who paid their respects to the lawyer and voiced their condolences to his wife Kristen, his father Richard, and mother Maria Colonna at his wake at the Torregrossa Funeral Home on Sunday, November 20 and at the funeral mass for Meringolo the following day at St. Bernadette's Church.

In one of the seven cases Meringolo worked with Geduldig about 15 years ago, he agreed to be paid as a paralegal even though he was a member of the bar and working as an attorney when the judge in the case refused to appoint him as a second attorney in the case, recalled the son of a defendant they represented.

“John was always willing to go the extra mile for his client," said an attorney in the same case.

Meringolo's first Big Win in a mob case came in 2011, when he pressed federal prosecutors in Brooklyn for a speedy trial for Bonanno soldier Armando (Mondo) Rea for the 1980 murder of Genovese gnagster Gerard Pappa and Rea got a sweet plea deal to loansharking and a sentence of probation after the jury was selected in his case.

In 2002, while starting out in his chosen profession, he published a glossy collector's edition magazine celebrating the life and career of Muhammad Ali called "The Greatest." It featured art by LeRoy Neiman and drawings by legendary Daily News cartoonist Bill Gallo and sold for $20, and had a press run of 50,000 copies.

After Ali died in 2016, Meringolo said that he received an offer to reissue the magazine, which also featured pieces by noted boxing writer Budd Schulburg from On The Waterfront fame and writings by Ali, but he turned it down. "I wouldn't want to profit off someone's death," he said.

Meringolo is also survived by his twin 18-month-old boys, Charles and Anthony, his sister Maria, brother-in-law Kelly Cobb, his niece Emma and several aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Feds Offer Numbers Game Plea Deals In The Colombo Family Case; Skinny Teddy's Not Playing

Two defendants in last year's blockbuster Colombo family racketeering case copped guilty pleas this week as part of an intriguing numbers game that the feds have proposed to the 14 remaining defendants since the death of family boss Andrew (Mush) Russo. But capo Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico doesn't seem interested in playing that game.

Persico, the nephew of late boss Carmine (Junior) Persico and the alleged heir apparent to the Colombo family throne, claims that FBI case agent Joseph Costello screwed him royally by falsely stating that he was the boss of the family in order to obtain key wiretaps of phones used by him and others that prosecutors used to gather alleged evidence to indict him.

In a court filing, Persico has asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Hector Gonzalez to conduct a hearing to determine whether Costello made a "false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth" that would warrant the suppression of the information that was obtained by the wiretaps that were ordered by several judges in 2020 and 2021.

“The evidence shows," attorney Joseph Corozzo wrote, "that by the time that the FBI special agent alleged Mr. Persico was the boss of the racketeering enterprise, the FBI already knew from a better positioned informant that this was not true."

"We submit," the lawyer argued, "that the FBI special agent knowingly and intentionally misrepresented Mr. Persico's position within the racketeering enterprise" and that the evidence that was gleaned from several wiretaps should be suppressed because without those "material misrepresentations" the wiretaps for Skinny Teddy's cell phone would not have been ordered.

"The affidavits in support of the orders relied on misinformation from an unreliable informant, stating that Mr. Persico was the boss of the racketeering enterprise when, as the FBI knew," Corozzo wrote, "he was not. The affidavits show, the lawyer wrote, "that the (agent's) interpretation of previously intercepted communications was framed by this misinformation."

“Every time that an intercepted communication referred to the highest levels of the racketeering enterprise," Corozzo wrote, "the FBI special agent interpreted that communication to refer to Mr. Persico because of the misinformation from the unreliable informant."

Much of the factual documentation for Corozzo's arguments is sealed and most of the unredacted material he cited in his motion is hard to decipher.

But the lawyer asserts that while Costello was swearing in affidavits for wiretaps that an informer, CS-2, stated that Persico was the boss, the FBI had better info that Russo was the boss from two cooperating witnesses in the Lottery Winners ripoff case — Francis (Frank) Smookler and Russo's grandson Frangesco (Frankie) Russo.

In the filing, Corozzo also asked Judge Gonzalez to order the government to turn over evidence the FBI used to tap phones used by Mush Russo and consigliere Ralph DeMatteo even though "the Government states that those were for a different investigation," apparently the Lottery ripoff case.

“Material from those wiretaps will contain evidence material to preparing Mr. Persico's defense" of the main charge, Corozzo wrote, namely that he was involved in a racketeering indictment that includes a 20-year-long shakedown of a Queens-based construction union.

Gang Land expects that prosecutors will argue that even if some of Costello's statements in the affidavits were mistaken, they were made in good faith, and that there was other evidence that gave each of the judges probable cause to order all the wiretaps that the government obtained in the case.

Meanwhile, Bonanno soldier John (Bazoo) Ragano and Colombo associate John Glover each copped guilty pleas this week with somewhat lower prison terms than their crimes call for as part of a so-called "global plea" with a proviso that only 12 of the 14 defendants in the case have to agree to plead guilty by December 9. It's no coincidence that is three days before the feds have to respond to Skinny Teddy's motion.

John Ragano, 60, who pleaded guilty to loansharking and conspiring to sell Occupational Safety & Health Administration cards required to work on construction sites to persons who didn't pass the required OSHA course, in return for sentencing guidelines between 57-to-71 months. But it's a done deal only if ten of the other defendants work out plea agreements with the prosecutors.

It's a bit of a gamble because if only nine of the others cop plea deals, Ragano's sentencing guidelines will be 63-to-78 months. In any case, Bazoo will not be able to appeal any sentence that is less than 86 months as excessive.

The sentencing numbers for Glover, who pleaded to the same OSHA count as Ragano, will be 12-to-18 months if ten others cop plea deals, and 15-to-21 months if they don't. In any event, Glover, 63, agrees to accept any sentence that is 30 months or less.

The rub for both defendants, and any others who plead guilty between Friday and December 12 is that if a total of only 11 do so, they will be stuck with the higher sentencing guidelines and they will not be able to withdraw their guilty pleas.

Wake Of Big Frank Signals An End To The Mob Angst Over The Killing Of Big Paul

The wake last month of a once-feared Brooklyn mobster indicates that the bad blood that flowed over the unsanctioned assassination of Mafia boss Paul (Big Paul) Castellano that was orchestrated by the late John Gotti appears to be over.

Frank (Big Frank) Lastorino, the Luchese capo credited by the feds with killing Gambino soldier Bartholomew (Bobby) Borriello, died of natural causes last month at age 82. Borriello was one of three Gotti pals executed by the Genovese and Luchese families in retaliation for the Gambino family's 1985 Christmas time killing of Castellano, according to law enforcement officials.

But among the mourners who showed up at Lastorino's wake were several members of the Gambino crime family. Mob watchers say that's a clear indication that the revenge slayings for the 1985 execution of Big Paul — whose unsanctioned murder violated strict Mafia rules — is now in the mob's rear view mirror.

Lastorino was never charged with killing Borriello. But he served 15 years behind bars after copping a plea deal to several other Luchese family rubouts that turncoat underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso linked Big Frank to when he flipped in 1994. Lastorino had no known problems with the law following his release from prison in 2008.

Borriello was gunned down in front of his Brooklyn home in April of 1991. He was the last of the three Gotti-pals who were executed by the two families, according to FBI reports based on Casso's account of the murders. According to Casso, the hits on the Gambino members were authorized by Genovese and Luchese crime family leaders. The other victims were Gotti's first underboss Frank DeCicco in 1986, and capo Edward Lino in 1990.

Gotti was the number one target that Luchese boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso and Genovese boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante had marked for death as punishment for killing Big Paul. But the Teflon Don slipped the noose. Still, in 1990, while Gaspipe and Amuso were on the lam, they decided that Borriello had to be hit too because they feared he would "avenge" Gotti’s death if they ever caught up with him.

By the time Casso was able to get Borriello's home address from the rogue NYPD detectives he had on his payroll, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, any chance the vigilante mobsters would be able to whack Gotti was gone since he'd been arrested and jailed for the Castellano hit.

But Amuso and Casso decided to kill Borriello anyway, and Gaspipe gave his address to Amuso's brother Robert, a capo in the crime family who passed it on to Big Frank, according to a report by ex-FBI agents Richard Rudolph and James Brennan.

The law caught up with Lino's killers, so-called Mafia Cops Eppolito and Caracappa who were convicted at trial and died behind bars. But like Genovese associate Herbert (Blue Eyes) Pate, who used a remote-controlled bomb to kill DeCicco, Lastorino was not indicted for his retaliation slaying when Casso fell out of favor with the feds.

But sources say Big Frank had some problems with his crime family for several years following his release from prison. The reason, the sources say, is that Amuso and other family loyalists felt Lastorino was "too close" to Casso. As a result, he was relieved of his wiseguy rights and responsibilities and placed on a "shelf."

But sources on both sides of the law say the crime family's punishment against Big Frank wasn't permanent.

That was evident at his wake last month. Luchese members in good standing — including capo Joseph (Joe Caffe) Desena and soldiers Anthony Guzzo, Michael Avellino, Albert (Al Muscles) Armetta, and Jody Calabrese — and mobsters from other families showed up to pay their respects to Lastorino and express their condolences to his widow Nannette and son Victor.

Amuso, who is 88, couldn't be there. He is currently serving the 32d year of a life sentence.

Gang Land's sources didn't spot acting boss Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis at the Scarpaci Funeral Home in Brooklyn on November 10 but they noted that the appearance of several Gambino wiseguys — including consigliere Lorenzo Mannino and capo Joseph Lanni — at Big Frank's one-day wake indicated that Lastorino's killing of Borriello is a dead issue.

The obvious inference, say sources on both sides of the law, is that the Sicilian-based leadership of the Gambino family has decided that the killing of Borriello — as well as the rubouts of DeCicco and Lino — are like water than has passed under bridge and is long gone.

"The wiseguys that survive the longest," said one sagacious underworld source, "are the ones that hold grudges the shortest

[Dr031718]

Frank Lastorino

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting Dr. Interesting that Mannino is consigliere.

[Dr031718]

Thanks for posting Dr. Interesting that Mannino is consigliere.

Agreed. After Cali was killed Capeci had Mannino as underboss and Paradiso as Consigliere but apparently there has been some changes

[Pmac2]

Interesting. Seems like frank l. Was well liked in jail. Probably alot of old prison pals

[Little_Al1991]

Thanks for posting. Interesting article on Lastorino but Pennisi has stated other reasons as to why Lastorino is on the shelf.
Mannino is consigliere, the last we heard about the consigliere position was in relation to Paradiso.

[savior]

Albert (Al Muscles) Armetta is a Bonanno soldier, not a Lucchese...

[Tonyd621]

Albert (Al Muscles) Armetta is a Bonanno soldier, not a Lucchese...

And that's why when he labels someone as "consig..." we should assume it's not 100% factual.

[SonnyBlackstein]

And that's why when he labels someone as "consig..." we should assume it's not 100% factual.

100%.

I'd take Mannino as Consig with grain of salt.

Big Frank's placement on the shelf was only temporary?? Guy was on the shelf since (at least) 2008 to his death in (almost) 2023. Fifteen years. Aged 67 to 82. When was Vic planning at taking him off the shelf? When he hit 100?

I love how we're talking bad blood between the Gambinos and Lukes over Castellano as well. As if that's been a thing in 20+ years.

[Pogo The Clown]

From the way it reads Lastorino was no longer on the shelf when he died.


Pogo

[Wiseguy]

I wonder if Paradiso is in bad health.

[CabriniGreen]

So Joe Lanni is in fact capo. Noted....

[TSNYC]

So Joe Lanni is in fact capo. Noted....

It’s amazing, his brother is a detective with the Brooklyn DA, I believe. Talk about a conflict. Brooklyn DA detectives were probably at the wake taking photos.

[JohnnyS]

So Joe Lanni is in fact capo. Noted....

He's been a captain for 5 or 6 years now.

[JohnnyS]

So going off Capeci's reports.

pre Cali murder

Boss (in name): Peter Gotti
Acting Boss: Domenico Cefalu
Underboss: Frank Cali
Consigliere: Lorenzo Mannino

post Cali murder and Gotti's death

Boss (acting?): Domenico Cefalu
Underboss: Lorenzo Mannino
Consigliere: Michael Paradiso

2022

Boss (acting?): Domenico Cefalu?
Underboss: ?
Consigliere: Lorenzo Mannino

Could the current underboss be Silvester Davi? There was a lot of debate on what his rank was when the reports came out in Italy that he had replaced Frank Cali. felice had him as the street boss of the Sicilians operating in NY but could he be holding the underboss position now.