Gangland 3/16/2023

[Dr031718]

Women Got Equal Treatment From DA's Office In Huge Bid-Rigging Case; Genovese Wiseguy Seeks Speedy Trial

The late ex-wife of Gambino mobster Louis Astuto played an integral role in a massive bid-rigging scheme that stole more than $5 million from a major Manhattan developer, Gang Land has learned.

Before her death at age 57 after a lengthy illness in December 2020, Cynthia Astuto worked with her ex-husband and Gambino capo Frank Camuso to falsify business records, according to a search warrant affidavit that was obtained by Gang Land. The records allegedly "were used to create the appearance of legitimate business expenses" that were used to facilitate the eight-year-long scheme.

Camuso, Astuto and 22 other mob-tied defendants were arrested in January by the Manhattan District Attorney's office for stealing millions through a complex bribery scam involving dozens of construction firms that received $100 million worth of contracts for building projects from 2013 to 2021.

The Gambino family duo and 21 of their codefendants, who were released without bail after they pleaded not guilty, are now waiting for the huge 83-count indictment to meander to a conclusion in the next year or three. But the other accused made man in the case, Genovese wiseguy Christopher Chierchio, has professed his innocence, and has asked for a speedy trial. He wants to roll the dice, believe it or not, in two weeks, on April 3.

We'll get to Chierchio's assertions and demands below, and also explain the unusual nickname that Chierchio acquired from his Gambino family co-defendants during the long investigation.

The search warrant affidavit, dated February 21, 2020, states that the wiretapped cell phone that Camuso used during the probe by the Manhattan DA's office, was registered to Cynthia Astuto. The affidavit also states that she wrote "checks from Astuto's accounts to Camuso and his family" and that Camuso's wife, Christine, "meets with Cynthia Astuto regularly to pick up the checks."

Sources say that but for her death, Ms. Astuto would have been the third woman defendant in the case.

The affidavit by NYPD Detective Nicholas Lagano names her, as well as Camuso, the powerful Staten Island-based capo, Astuto, and Robert Baselice, the vice president of the major general contractor who is charged with orchestrating the bid-rigging and kickback scheme, as "relevant parties in the investigation."

The same investigative sources say that the 13 months of tape recordings and other evidence obtained in the four-year probe indicate that Christine Camuso's role in the case was limited to picking up and depositing checks, a task she carried out as "the wife" of a defendant and "not as a participant" in any criminal activity.

It's defiitely not as though investigators were trying to cut women a break: two other women, Jeannine Garafola and Michelle DeBella, were indicted in the case.

"They indicted two women so it had nothing to do with an allowance or discount for the fairer sex," cracked one defense lawyer.

The two indicted women were not named in the affidavit. Bbut their companies, and their listed owners, were cited as "targeted subcontractors" of the Rinaldi Group, the Secaucus-based builder whose vice president was the focal point of the scheme. A total of 24 individuals and 26 companies are charged in the case.

Jeanine Garafola was a manager of Earth Structures Inc. of Staten Island, and her husband, Gambino associate Mario Garafola, was a "principal" of the firm that received contracts worth $9 million from the Rinaldi Group in 2017 and 2018, according to the affidavit. They were charged in January with funneling $238,000 in kickbacks to Camuso.

Michelle DeBella, an employee of MDB Development Corp, of Manhattan, and her uncle, Michael DeBellas, the "principal" of the company, received $3 million in Rinaldi subcontracts from 2017 to 2019, the affidavit stated. The indictment alleges that DeBellas and his niece stole $50,000 from the Rinaldi Group and funneled that amount back to Baselice as a kickback.

The Lagano affidavit, and the monstrous indictment accuse Chierchio, who was nicknamed Jerry Maguire by Camuso and is often called that in taped talks, sources say, with using his now-defunct plumbing company, RCI PLBG Inc. to steal $300,000 from $13 million in contracts he received from Rinaldi from 2016 to 2019 and funneling $27,000 to Camuso in 2019.

The nickname has nothing to do with the lack of any resemblance the balding wiseguy has with Tom Cruise, who starred in the title role of the fired sports agent in the 1996 film Jerry Maguire. It stemmed, sources say, from Chierchio constantly saying, "Show me the money," the phrase that Cruise-Maguire uttered during the movie, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

"It drove Camuso crazy," said one source, "and he and Astuto called him Jerry, or Jerry Maguire whenever they complained about him, which was a lot."

In his request for a severance from his codefendants and a very speedy trial, Chierchio's attorney told Acting Supreme Court Justice Felicia Mennin that his client will be unavailable for trial for about five years beginning May 2. He is slated to be sentenced that day for conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his involvement in the $80 million ripoff of three Lottery winners in 2020.

Lawyer Gerald McMahon wrote that Chierchio will "likely be sentenced to 60 months on May 2," the maximum prison term called for by his guilty plea, since the minimun sentencing guidelines for the crime is 78 months. McMahon argued that his client would be unduly prejudiced if he were forced to trial five years after an indictment which comes three years after he refused to plead guilty to any charges.

The lawyer noted that "on at least three occasions," in 2018, 2019, and in 2020, he was told at "in-person meetings" with assistant district attorney Meredith McGowan and other ADAs and investigators that Chierchio "would be indicted and arrested unless he 'came in and pleaded guilty.'"

His client "refused to plead guilty because he is, in fact, not guilty of any of the four charges contained in the indictment," McMahon wrote in seeking a reply to his motion for a "severance and a trial date no later than April 3, 2023" by next week.

As of press time yesterday, ADA McGowan, and Judge Mennin, had not responded to Chierchio's request for speedy justice. The usually vocal McMahon declined to comment about the nickname that his client was given by his Gambino crime family peers.

Ex-U.S. Marshal In Plea To Federal Judge: Send Mikey Spat Home

In an open letter to a federal judge, Mike Pizzi evoked a stellar 35-year career as a law and order man that included his appointment by President Clinton as U.S. Marshal in Brooklyn, in his last-ditch effort to win a compassionate release for a mob associate who has been jailed for 18 years so he can care for his mentally failing and cancer-ridden 89-year-old dad.

Pizzi, who lived behind a Mafia social club as a boy but grew up to locate and arrest fugitive mobsters the FBI couldn't find, has accumulated reams of documents that he says prove that Michael (Mikey Spat) Spataro was wrongfully convicted of an attempted mob rubout in 2001.

In his letter, Pizzi noted his belief that in a single sentence that Mikey Spat did not scheme with one mobster pal, Vincent DeMartino, to kill a second mobster Joseph (Joe Camp) Campanella, both of whom had been guests at Spataro's wedding.

This letter was mainly about compassion: For Spataro, 56, who's due for release a year from now, and for his dad, a former professional boxer who took many blows to the head, both before and after he served honorably in the Korean War. The elder Spataro, Pizzi wrote, "is in very poor health" and living with a 78-year-old brother who "is unable to provide the attention and care" that his son "would be able to provide."

The father boxed professionally as Mickey Spataro and "had many pro fights in Madison Square Garden," Pizzi wrote. As a result, he "began to have mental issues that I personally witnessed as we began a close friendship after I retired" and after he "asked me to help his son who had" been convicted six years earlier.

"What harm could come" from releasing Mikey Spat "whose conduct has been outstanding" behind bars, and who "(re)presents no harm to anyone," is not a risk of flight, and who is "not a member of any organized crime family?" Pizzi asked Brooklyn Federal Court Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, who took over the 2004 case in June of 2020.

The ex-lawman told Judge DeArcy Hall with pride that he had spent most of his adult life serving his Uncle Sam, "first as a Marine" and many years later as "one of only a handful of U.S. Marshals" to have been "appointed by the President of the United States" after having "served in the ranks" as a deputy marshal and later as a Chief Deputy.

"I always gave special attention to the enforcement of law against organized crime and in particular the Cosa Nostra," he wrote. He noted that he "grew up" in Bensonhurst and that his "bedroom window" faced "the back of the infamous Wimpy Boys Social Club" — the headquarters of Gregory Scarpa, who served the Colombo family as the Grim Reaper and the FBI as a top echelon informer.

Pizzi described how "as a youngster" he worked "menial jobs for many neighborhood shops" as well as "in construction and trucking" and for butchers and pharmacists before joining the Marines. He said he was chagrined two years later when he "returned to the neighborhood" and saw "some of my friends being lured into the life of crime by none other than Scarpa himself."

After working as a deputy U.S. Marshal for three years in Manhattan, and transferring to Brooklyn in 1968 to work "a little closer to home," he "encountered some childhood friends who were now connected to organized crime." He repeated to them what he said was the "best advice" he had received about dealing with the problem from a colleague.

"Please don't ask me anything about my business, and I will not ask you anything about your business and we will never embarrass each other," he told them when he ran into them during visits to his mom. "She would tell me how my friends, Bobby or Joey, who were connected to Scarpa would help carry her shopping into the house where she lived and died at age 95," he wrote.

"At the same time," Pizzi wrote, as the chief deputy marshal in 1988, he supervised the arrest of Gregort Scarpa Jr., the mobster son of the elder Scarpa, when FBI agents "could not find him and the U.S. Attorney asked me to find and arrest Scarpa Jr."

He mentioned "these things about friends and neighbors," Pizzi told Judge DeArcy Hall, because, "as I am sure you know," he continued, "living in close contact with childhood friends can be somewhat uncomfortable when your career path takes you in the direction of the justice system" and they "are not part of the Law and Order system and live and work" in your neighborhood, Pizzi wrote.

"Many of these neighborhood people may have even been invited to your wedding," wrote Pizzi, noting that "was the case with Spataro as both the shooter, Vincent DeMartino, and the victim who was shot and wounded, Joe Campanella, "were at Spataro's wedding."

"There's no reason why Mike Spataro should remain locked up any longer," Pizzi told Gang Land yesterday. "DeMartino is home. Campanella spent a few days in the hospital and has been free more than 20 years. And the three defendants who Mike supposedly conspired with, were all acquitted. And even my government concedes he wasn't at the scene of the shooting."

"I was going to mention that in the letter, that even the gunman has been released "said Pizzi, "but I found out that Mike's new lawyer submitted the draft letter I asked him to look over and send back to me without telling me."

In his letter, Pizzi noted that Spataro's mom died while he was behind bars and asked DeArcy Hall to send him home now so he can take care of his dad and an ailing uncle while he's so close to the day when he will likely be placed in a halfway house. "Why let him lose another parent," he wrote, "while serving this sentence."

Sammy Bull On Gene Borrello: I Never Got Busted For Stupid Shit

He didn't want to talk about it, but ex-Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano "heard about" how former Bonanno gangster Gene Borrello and Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Frederic Block had compared Gravano's life and times to Borrello's after they flipped and became cooperating witnesses at his sentencing last month.

And Sammy Bull was persuaded to put together a few sentences for Gang Land.

"That's nuts," he said. "I got violated once, got busted after I came out," he said. Then he paused, apparently to think about how to describe that sad situation for him when he was arrested in Arizona for dealing Ecstasy with his son and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for it.

Finally, he said: "But I never got busted for stupid shit, like threatening my girlfriend's family, or threatening to beat people up. I can't figure out what's up with him."

Gravano, who became the first Mafia underboss to take the witness stand against his boss, and testified at the trials of two other mob chieftains, Genovese family leader Vincent (Chin) Gigante, and acting Colombo boss Victor (Little Vic) Orena, heartily agreed with Judge Block's assessment that Borrello's cooperation was "surpassed by Sammy the Bull."

The Bull said he was "surprised" though that Block named him as the "only" cooperating witness who did more than Borrello. Gang Land suggested a few other witnesses — including Luchese boss Alfonso (Little Al) D'Arco, Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, underboss Salvatore Vitale, and Gambino capo Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo — who had a major impact on the people in the life they left behind.

"There's a lot of guys," he said. "Don't get me started."

Meanwhile, as the government and Borrello prepare for trial on May 9 on 12 additional violation of supervised release charges, the Probation Department is working feverishly to publicly docket the Florida-based VOSR charges that were lodged in September, 2022 and in January of 2023 for violations that occurred after he moved there in May of last year. He's been sentenced to 10 months for the VOSRs for the first two filings by the Probation Department.

Gang Land described many of the allegations in the VOSRs two weeks ago, but on Monday, Block ordered the Probation Department to docket "brief descriptions" of all 12 VOSRs that Borrello now faces.

[TommyGambino]

Capeci is obsessed with Borrello

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting.

[TSNYC]

Thanks for posting.

I’ve heard Mario Garafola suffered a bad stroke and is basically incapacitated, it’d be something if his wife has to take the weight for him. I guess this also clears up question re whether he was made or not.

[Little_Al1991]

Thanks for posting

[Southshore88]

Thanks for posting

[Amershire_Ed]

Thx for posting

[slimshady_007]

Capeci is obsessed with Borrello

It’s like watching a train wreck, Borrello is a fuckin clown & a source of entertainment.

[Cheech]

I am not even sure what Astuto, Chierchio, and Camuso did wrong. I cant wrap my head around what was illegal about what they did.

[PolackTony]

Capeci is obsessed with Borrello

It’s like watching a train wreck, Borrello is a fuckin clown & a source of entertainment.

Yeah and with less mob-related news to cover, Borrello is the gift that keeps on giving. He can always be counted on to fill space during a slow week.

[Wiseguy]

I am not even sure what Astuto, Chierchio, and Camuso did wrong. I cant wrap my head around what was illegal about what they did.

Inflated bids and phony change orders in exchange for kickbacks. Ultimately costing the firm's customers more than they otherwise would have paid while those involved (Baselice, the subs, and the mob) pocketed the difference.

[Ivan]

Borello is fuckin boring, fight me

[Cheech]

I am not even sure what Astuto, Chierchio, and Camuso did wrong. I cant wrap my head around what was illegal about what they did.

Inflated bids and phony change orders in exchange for kickbacks. Ultimately costing the firm's customers more than they otherwise would have paid while those involved (Baselice, the subs, and the mob) pocketed the difference.

Sounds like what Campos was doing. Thanks for the explanation

[CornerBoy]

this happens and has been happening forever in most of the trades, tech, food business.

BTW- Gangland sucks these days. Burnstein is better. and no, im not trying to start anything

[Uforeality]

I think Borello is boring too but Capeci is a crime reporter. If these guys aren't in court then Jerry has nothing to write about. The sad state of LCN in New York reflects in the weak articles in Gangland News.