Gangland:1/28/16

[Dellacroce]

January 28, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Online Sports-Betting Guru Betting On Vindictive Prosecution Charge

Two years ago, New York mob prosecutor Eric Seidel was on holiday in Israel when a news reporter asked what he would do to crack down on terrorists and other violent criminals there. "Whatever the law allows you to do, do in a big way," he said. "Deprive them of funds. Make their lives tough on a daily basis. Work hard until you find enough evidence to prosecute and convict them. Then you have to impose very stiff sentences, with no parole. Inside the prison, make sure they have no access to their friends."

That's been the U.S. game plan against organized crime for decades. But last month those words were cited as evidence to bolster a claim by defendants in a Manhattan case that Seidel, an assistant district attorney for Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, was a "vindictive prosecutor." As a result, defense lawyers say money laundering and gambling charges against Robert Stuart, the creator of an online sports betting program used by bookmakers everywhere, should be thrown out.

We kid you not. Lawyers for Stuart, 57, and his co-defendants — his wife Susanne, 53, brother-in-law Patrick Read, 54, and his Arizona-based software company — lodged a host of allegations of wrongdoing against Seidel, including claiming the case stems from "vindictive prosecution." For good measure, the defense attorneys added several other law enforcement officials from New York to Arizona to the allegations as they asked a state appeals court to block the case from going to trial. The defendants are charged with laundering more than $5 million obtained from mob connected bookmakers from 2005 through 2013.

In filings with the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the attorneys assert that Seidel, along with other prosecutors and investigators at the Manhattan DA's Office, as well as Arizona authorities, took part in wrongdoing that renders the current indictment — filed in June of 2014, a year after their first trial ended in a hung jury — an unlawful one that should be summarily dismissed.

They accuse him of using unfair hardball prosecution tactics with the defendants at every turn.

"From the defendants' October, 2012 arraignment on the original indictment through the first trial, ADA Seidel repeatedly attributed every inconvenience of the defendants and counsel, conflict or contested issue to the defendants' desire to go to trial as opposed to entering a guilty plea," they wrote.

The DA's office first linked the Stuart company, Extension Software, to New York bookies in 2011. At that point, Robert Stuart agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with the DA's office. But he changed his mind and opted for trial soon after.

A few months after the Stuarts were indicted, on January 8, 2013, Seidel arranged what defense lawyers termed an "ambush arrest" of Mrs. Stuart for misdemeanor harassment charges on the 11th floor of the courthouse. The arrest, the lawyers wrote, occurred "a few steps away from the court room" and was designed to create a "spectacle and further antagonize the defendants," they stated.

Seidel's aggressive tactics increased when Judge Patricia Nunez declared a mistrial that October, the lawyers wrote. "The prosecutor stood up in open court and declared that he would re-indict these defendants on much more substantial charges" if they didn't cop guilty pleas, the attorneys wrote.

In the section of their papers where they cite Seidel's December 2013 interview with Israeli reporter Ayelett Shani, of the Haaretz Daily Newspaper, the lawyers wrote that Seidel's words were "relevant to the issue of animus" because they illustrate "the prosecutor's ideological approach to defendants charged under the banner of 'Organized Crime.'"

Noting that Seidel's words came after the mistrial, and before an expanded indictment in 2014 that included Gambino mobster Joseph Isgro as a codefendant, the attorneys stated that Seidel "believes … that the most effective way of dealing with (organized crime) cases is to punish the defendant from the initiation and obtain enough evidence to arrest the defendant at a later time."

To obtain the new indictment, prosecutors used testimony that Robert Stuart and Read gave in their own defense at their 2013 trial, and played tape-recorded conversations linking Isgro and his mob supervisor, the late Gambino capo Joseph (Joe the Blond) Giordano, to the Stuarts and the sports betting software program that he created.

"The totality of the circumstances" about the prosecution, the defense lawyers wrote, "clearly shows that this prosecution is vindictive and without legitimate cause besides the possibility of causing further financial harm, embarrassment and emotional stress for these defendants."

The ordeal for Robert and Susanne Stuart began on February 8, 2011 when prosecutors and detectives with the DA's office and Arizona state investigators conducted a "military style raid of their home" in Pine, Arizona looking for evidence linking the Stuarts and the sports betting program Robert had created to mob-connected New York bookmakers, the lawyers wrote.

The old-fashioned gumshoes and modern-day techies from both offices were accompanied for their seven hour search "by a Maricopa County, Arizona SWAT team in full camouflage, armed with assault rifles and armored personnel carriers," the attorneys wrote.

The raiders seized every "computer, electronic data storage unit and hardcopy document" in their home, and within 10 days, after Read flew to Arizona from his home in Georgia and gave up his laptop rather than suffer his own "paramilitary style raid," the die was cast for Robert Stuart to take the weight with his wife and brother-in-law getting a pass, according to the lawyers.

On February 23, 2011 Stewart flew to Manhattan, and signed a cooperation agreement with the DA's office. In it, he admitted earning $4.8 million in licensing fees he knew were illegal from nine U.S. entities including five in New York. A month later, he rescinded his agreement, say the attorneys, because he was innocent and because the DA's office wanted to use his software illegally to trap persons engaged in gambling outside the U.S., in countries where it is legal.

In recounting Stuart's trip to New York, the lawyers don't say it straight out, but they imply what law enforcement officials say privately is the real reason why Stewart changed his mind about cooperating — a fear of reprisal from mob connected gangsters he was involved with.

Members of the DA's office told Stuart to wear "a disguise and enter through a side door," the lawyers wrote, because he was involved in business dealings with some "really bad organized crime figures." They stated that even though he was "extremely nervous and scared, Mr. Stuart declined to do so since he knew that he had never associated with or met any organized crime figures in his life."

The defense legal papers also slam Judge Nunez, for declaring a mistrial "sua sponte," (on her own) in the first case after only one and a half days of deliberations "even though a majority of the jurors were voting to acquit." They rip the current judge, Bonnie Wittner, for rejecting all the legal objections — including "vindictive prosecution" claims — that the Stuarts' team of lawyers has filed with her in the past 18 months.

The lawyers name Wittner, who has scheduled a February 9 conference to set a trial date, and Seidel, a longtime Rackets Bureau supervisor, as respondents in a Writ of Prohibition that seeks to stop the trial before it starts, arguing essentially that it is an unlawful prosecution. Writs of Prohibition are rarely granted, but Gang Land's not taking any bets, either way.

While Wittner has top billing on their papers, Seidel, the lead prosecutor in the first trial and an organized crime supervisor since 2008, who spearheaded the second indictment, is the main target of attorneys Ryan Blanch, William White, Jeffrey Chabrowe and Daniel Bibb.

"A Writ of Prohibition should be granted," the attorneys stated at the end of their 70-page filing, because "it cannot be said that these defendants have not made a case of prosecutorial vindictiveness."

The folks at the Manhattan DA's office are sure to find a way to say otherwise in papers that spokeswoman Roxanne Leong says prosecutors expect to file before February 2.

Appeals Court Turns Lightsaber On Judge From The Dark Side

When Brooklyn Federal Judge William Kuntz pronounced sentence for mob associate Gary Fama in 2014, he did so in basso profundo tones that sounded like a Darth Vader death knell. It wasn't a death sentence, but it was close: Kuntz, who likes to call himself Father Vader for his deep voice, gave Fama 35 years, more than twice the recommended maximum of 13 1/2 years for a $5,000 Brooklyn bank robbery.

At the sentencing, Kuntz wore a smile as he announced the staggering sentence in his resonant baritone, adding five years of post-prison supervision for emphasis. "A life of crime," the judge told Fama, "can also lead to a life behind bars."

But an appeals court decision issued last week felled Kuntz's decision like an Obi-Wan Kenobi lightsaber. A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the lengthy prison term and ordered Kuntz to resentence Fama for the Bensonhurst bank heist he pulled with turncoat mob associate Jack Mannino on December 29, 2011.

In its nine page ruling, the court said the sentence was so much greater than the "top of the guidelines" recommendation of 162 months that Kuntz was required to "state, both in open court and in a written order, the specific reason" for his "significant" upward departure.

The court noted that Kuntz uttered contradictory remarks about the sentence he imposed.

"On the one hand," the panel wrote, Kuntz stated: "We don't punish people in this country for crimes with which they were not charged and crimes for which they were not convicted by a jury of their peers beyond a reasonable doubt."

"On the other hand, the district court went on" to discuss the testimony by Mannino that Fama selected the bank they robbed because he had gotten away with a prior heist there "without making any explicit findings of fact or explaining for what purpose it considered it," the appeals court stated.

"That is an error that affects defendant's substantial rights," the panel wrote, noting that Kuntz's words "may have sufficed for a more limited upward variance," but it was not "an adequate basis for … imposing a 420-month long sentence of imprisonment."

Technically, Kuntz could conduct a sentencing hearing and mete out the same prison term, but that is unlikely. In its ruling the three judges stated they had not considered "Fama's additional sentencing arguments" but would retain jurisdiction over the case for "any subsequent appeal."

But Fama, 50, who has served four years so far, is not out of the woods yet. At his sentencing proceeding, prosecutors suggested a 25 year sentence. They cited his prior robbery of the same bank 12 years earlier, and noted that's what he would have faced if he'd been convicted of that.

NYPD Honors Detective Slain 30 Years Ago In Shootout With Genovese Mobster

Thirty years after Detective Anthony Venditti was killed in a wild shootout with a Genovese soldier, the NYPD praised their fallen hero and rededicated a plaque in his honor at a quiet ceremony at police headquarters that was attended by his mother Anna, his widow Patricia, and his daughter Traysia.

Venditti, a member of the NYPD/FBI Joint Organized Crime Task Force, and his partner were tailing mobster Federico (Fritzy) Giovanelli and two underlings on the night of January 21, 1986 when all hell broke loose following a confrontation between the two men outside the Castillo Diner at the corner of St. Nicholas and Myrtle Avenues in Ridgewood.

Exactly what happened that fateful night is not clear. But when the shooting stopped, Venditti, a father of four girls, was shot four times, twice in the face and twice in the back. He never fired his gun. His partner, Kathy Burke was shot once in the chest, but survived. She fired five shots from her .38 caliber revolver.

"Anthony was one of our very best and we are eternally grateful for his service to the department," said Chief of Department James O'Neill.

"He was an exceptional human being and an outstanding investigator," said O'Neill. "His street smarts and fluency in Italian made him a natural member of the Joint Organized Crime Task Force, where he had a reputation as a seasoned undercover officer specializing in illegal gambling and mob cases."

The plaque will hang in the office of the Organized Crime Investigation Division, the NYPD's elite unit that tracks wiseguys and other organized crime groups.

Patricia Venditti thanked the NYPD for remembering her husband's service and sacrifice but expressed sadness that no one was ever convicted of his murder. "That gave anguish to his mother all these years," she said.

Giovanelli was arrested running away from the scene. Carmine Gualtiere and Steven Maltese, two underlings in Fritzy's gambling and loansharking ring, were arrested two days later based on info that Burke provided about the shooting.

The trio of gangsters were tried three times in Queens Supreme Court, and ultimately acquitted. They were found guilty of racketeering and murder in a Manhattan federal court trial, but the murder conviction was overturned. Gualtiere, who served five years, and Maltese who did seven, have died.

Giovanelli, 83, served 10 years for racketeering. He was convicted twice more for various other crimes, including obstruction of justice and for having a role in a chop shop. He was released from prison for his last conviction in 2011, and still resides in Queens.

[willychichi]

Was hoping for more on the Bonannos in this weeks column?

[Hailbritain]

Why no follow up on the bonnanos story , this is a yawn fest this week , cheers for posting though

[Pogo The Clown]

Thanks for posting this weeks column.


Pogo