Gangland 4/6/2023

[Dr031718]

Wiseguy Who Turned To Crime After His Dad Was Gunned Down By Cops Seeks Leniency At His Sentencing

Bonanno mobster John (Bazoo) Ragano was 16 years old when he saw his father lying dead on a Queens sidewalk, having been shot by NYPD officers following a dispute over a traffic accident, Gang Land has learned.

That traumatic event back in 1978 helped set Ragano, who says he idolized his dad, on a life of crime, according to a court filing by Bazoo who is facing up to 87 months in prison at his sentencing next week for extortion and a $500,000 fraud.

In an intriguing and compelling court filing, Ragano's attorney cited that "horrific" experience as a reason for his client's life of crime in a plea for leniency. He is the first defendant to face the music in the 2021 case charging Colombo family leaders with racketeering and other crimes.

Ragano, who turns 61 today, celebrated his 16th birthday a few weeks after his father Carmine, a welder, suffered smoke poisoning and other injuries while helping residents escape the early morning fire on March 9, 1978, and was treated for them at Brookdale Hospital, according to a Daily News story about the blaze that destroyed 13 homes on Pine Street.

Six months later, on September 16, Carmine Ragano, 44, was shot and killed in a confrontation with two Transit Cops who police said attempted to apprehend him after a traffic accident. In the incident at 103d Avenue and 89th Street in Ozone Park, police alleged that the elder Ragano hit one of the cops "repeatedly with a lead pipe" after they chased him, according to an unbylined story in Newsday.

"Although he did not witness the shooting," Bazoo's attorney wrote in the court filing, "Ragano arrived at the scene of his father's death shortly thereafter and observed his father's covered body on the ground." This was an "horrific incident" that "profoundly traumatized the boy that Mr. Ragano was at that time," the lawyer wrote.

Another factor that cried out for leniency, the lawyer argued, was the likelihood that the Bureau of Prisons would not provide adequate medical care for Bazoo, whose medical care at the Metropolitan Detention Center for three months after his September 14, 2021 arrest was horrendous.

In arguing for a non-custodial term, attorney Joel Stein told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Hector Gonzalez that the medical care that Ragano — who is blind in one eye and has "severe" glaucoma in the other — got at the MDC was so bad that when the prior judge, Allyne Ross, learned how bad, she exclaimed, "Oh God," and ordered Bazoo's immediate release.

"Judge Ross was understandably outraged" on December 17 when she learned, Stein wrote, that after it took three months for an eye doctor to see Ragano and prescribe medication he needed, he still hadn't received it five days later. She "ordered him immediately released, even before the substantial conditions of release had been met," without objection from prosecutors, Stein wrote.

The attorney did not specifically ask for a "time served" sentence of three months for Ragano. He argued that there was a "genuine risk" that his client "may lose his vision entirely and face blindness for the rest of his life" if he were housed again in a Bureau of Prisons facility "given the BOP's demonstrated inability to properly care for him" while he was at the MDC.

A non-custodial sentence would be a huge win for Ragano. His global plea agreement calls for up to 71 months in prison, but since many co-defendants, including Colombo family underboss and consigliere, Benjamin (The Claw) Castelllazzo and Ralph (Big Ralph) DeMatteo, did not accept plea deals, it is not enforceable, and Bazoo will not be able to appeal any sentence up to 87 months.

In seeking three years less than the 40 months that the often-jailed Bazoo boasted would "not (be) a problem" for his "non-violent" crime if he were arrested, Stein cited a recent non-custodial sentence of a woman whose plea deal called for up to 10 years for a multi-million dollar fraud due to "the questionable ability of BOP to care for the defendant's medical condition."

In December, over the objections of the government, Manhattan Federal Judge Analisa Torres gave the defendant, Eva Rodriguez, five years of probation-home confinement for stealing $3.4 million from 1200 victims in what she characterized as "the worst fraud scheme that I have seen."

Stein told Gonzalez that Ragano is a much better person than he was in 2021, the year the arrogant wiseguy was arrested and jailed without bail for fraud, extortion, and drug dealing, the same year he mocked his ex-girlfriend for threatening to "call the cops" on him.

"I'll just tell them, 'Hey, okay, put me in jail,'" Ragano was tape-recorded saying on April 29, 2021 a day after "Ragano had slashed the tires" of his girlfriend's car, according to a court filing. "I ain't afraid to go to jail for this, it's non-violent; I'll get 35 months, 40 months," he continued, clapping his hands for emphasis, "and I’ll be home at 65."

In addition to the vision in his left eye, Ragano's entire persona has improved dramatically and he has been a model citizen in the 15 months since the substandard medical care he received at the MDC spurred Judge Ross to order Bazoo's release, Stein wrote.

"Since then," the lawyer wrote, "Ragano uncharacteristically has flourished as a responsible citizen" and "is grateful for the opportunity to have proved himself." But to halt his "laudable progress by a sentence of incarceration" would "be unfortunate and counterproductive," Stein wrote. "To believe otherwise," he argued, "is to view Ragano with blinders, unable or unwilling to view the man that he is now, as he has proven, and deserves to be considered by the Court."

Ragano lives with his sister Carmela and her son and has a full-time, six-day a week job at an auto salvage yard, Stein wrote.

His employer, George Kirschbaum, wrote that as the "yard foreman" of his firm, Parts Are Us, "John has challenged himself" and used "his skills to improve my company in efficiency, communication, and most importantly work environment," adding that "his leadership inside and outside of the workforce has been nothing short of excellent."

On Sundays, Stein wrote, Ragano goes to church and volunteers at a local pantry, and he now has loving, meaningful relationships with two adult children he had no time for in the many years he spent in and out of state and federal prisons.

“He had not been a good father," the lawyer wrote, but he has become one, according to Stern and letters of support that his son, Jason, 22, daughter, Stephany, 29, and his sister Carmela wrote in separate letters to Judge Gonzalez.

Since Ragano "has reestablished his relationship with his children," it would be an "unfortunate setback" for him to be separated from them again by incarceration, Stein wrote.

"My brother John has a heart of gold" and as the youngest of three siblings, Carmela wrote, suffered the most when "our dad died a terrible death and changed all our lives" several months after he helped rescue dozens of neighbors from a series of attached homes that were destroyed in a multi-alarm fire across the street from their home in Cypress Hills.

Their brother Peter was 19, and engaged; she was 18, had a boyfriend and got married, Carmela wrote. "John was a young boy" of 16. "Looking back," she wrote, "we left John alone and behind, in our grief. Our mom went to Yonkers to be with her sister and left us. . . (John) never had a good example to follow, never had any parent to go to," she wrote.

In a handwritten three page letter in which he asked "the Court for forgiveness" for "all the bad decisions in his life," and thanked lawyer Stein for helping him "to talk about my past and my pain," Ragano wrote that he lost his "father at a young age, and at that time I lost my faith in God and everything I believed in."

"My dad was the man who always showed me and my sister and my brother to help people and anyone in need," he wrote. "But when I lost my father, I became outraged. I made many mistakes in my life," Ragano continued, "and I regret them all. If my father was around, I know I would have did better. I held all the pain in. I didn't care. I blamed everyone but myself."

"I know I have to do my time," he wrote, "but I ask your Honor to understand my forgiveness, and hope you can sentence me accordingly, knowing I have goals to change and be a better person. Better man. I won't let you down. Thank you for listening. Truly yours John Ragano."

In a nine-page reply, prosecutors James McDonald, Devon Lash, Michael Gibaldi and Andrew Reich ignored every argument Stein made about the danger to his eyesight Ragano would face in prison, the impact his father's killing had on him, and the changes in the gangster's persona that Stein, Ragano's sister, his kids, his boss – as well as Bazoo – cited in their letters to the Judge.

They also hurled a high hard one at Bazoo. They asked Gonzalez to sentence him at the "high end" of adjusted sentencing guidelines of up to 87 months, since not enough defendants agreed to plea deals. They cited all the charges that were dropped, as well as convictions going back to 1999 as reasons for their recommendation.

Interestingly, they didn't tell Gonzalez about his first arrest at 16 after his father was killed by police. And they didn't mention his first major arrest, two years later for attempted murder of a police/correctional officer that Ragano resolved with a guilty plea in 1981 to first degree robbery, for which he served 12 years of a 9-to-27 year sentence.

Two cohorts in his fraud scheme, Colombo associate Domenick Ricciardo and John Glover, are among the six defendants whose plea deals can be revoked by prosecutors. So can the plea agreement for Colombo mobster Richard Ferrara, the only other wiseguy in the case who has pleaded guilty. Trial for the others is currently scheduled to begin in October.

Grandson Of Turncoat Bonanno Soldier Doesn't Want To Work On The Waterfront — Now

When the grandson of Bonanno soldier Thomas (Sharkey) Carrube applied for a well-paying job on the New York/New Jersey piers with the blessings of the International Longshoremen's Association, he got the full body inspection treatment from the Waterfront Commission's watchdogs.

After Sharkey's grandson, Tommy R. Carrube, submitted an application last year for a $165,000 a year longshoreman's gig, he underwent a videotaped interview regarding any friendships or affiliations he had with any reputed wiseguys or mob associates that would disqualify him from working on the docks.

This is the same up close and personal examination that Frank Giordano, the son of Gambino capo John (Handsome Jack) Giordano, underwent after he applied for his own handsomely paid union job on the docks.

Both men got thumbs down. Commission investigators found in both cases that they had associated with mobsters, and committed fraud, deceit or misrepresentation by making false statements about their acquaintanceship with organized crime. Those ties made them inimical to the policies of the Waterfront Commission Act, and unworthy of working on the docks.

In Carrube's case, it apparently didn't help that his grandpa is currently regarded as persona non grata by his mob peers, as well as by the ILA because he flipped and testified as a cooperating witness at the racketeering trial in 2019 of then-acting Bonanno boss Joseph (Joe C) Cammarano and former consigliere John (Porky) Zancocchio, who were both acquitted of all charges at trial.

Like Giordano, however, Carrube understands that within a month or two, the Supreme Court of the United States is slated to put down the Waterfront Commission's watchdogs who have been doing their best to root out mob-tied corruption on the piers for 70 years. So last week, Carrube followed Giordano's lead and withdrew his application rather than contest 11 charges accusing him of associating with his grandpa and another mobster, and lying about them.

The main allegations against Carrube involved his associations with his grandfather, and a former close pal of the elder Carrube, Bonanno mobster Louis (Louie the Leg-Breaker) Civello. Despite his nickname, Civello, 73, is a low-key Staten-Island based wiseguy who has managed to avoid any serious problems with the law over the years.

Sources say Civello, whose tenure goes back to the reign of the Mafia's first turncoat boss, former Bonanno chieftain Joseph Massino, has served as a captain, and as an acting capo. According to court records, he attended a Christmas time Captains Meeting at the Basilio Inn in Staten Island with acting boss Cammarano and more than a dozen other family members in 2014, including Ronald (Ronny G) Giallanzo and John (Johnny Skyway) Palazzolo.

The Commission alleged that Tommy R. Carrube "falsely testified" that he did not know Civello, that he did not recognize a picture of Louie the Leg-Breaker, that he didn't know that Civello and his grandfather Sharkey Carrube, 69, were associated with organized crime when he knew that both were inducted members of the Bonanno crime family.

As the veteran longshoreman character Kayo Dugan says in On the Waterfront: "Deaf and dumb. No matter how much we hate the torpedoes, we don't rat."

Playing Around? Mikey Nose Guilty Plea Is Off — Again

The much adjourned guilty plea that was scheduled to take place next week by Bonanno boss Michael (Mikey) Nose Mancuso to a violation of supervised release (VOSR) stemming from a meeting or two he had with a wiseguy or two — you guessed it — has been put off again for the seventh, and allegedly, the last time.

No one's talking about it, but according to court filings, former Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers, the current Chief of the U.S. Probation Department, is still slated to tell Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis why the government had decided to allow Mancuso to plead guilty to a lesser VOSR charge than the one that was first leveled against him.

The appearance by Capers in the 13-month-old VOSR against the Mafia boss is now slated for May 16, some three months after Garaufis ordered it back on February 16, instead of within ten days.

The judge ordered Capers to appear before him after he refused to go along with a proposal by prosecutor Michael Gibaldi and probation officer Ryan Lehr to allow Mancuso to admit meeting with ex-cons instead of with persons who were "involved with organized crime" as he was originally charged.

"Are you playing me?" Garaufis asked incredulously. "I don't like it, and I'm not going to accept it," the judge said.

The original charges were filed against Mancuso in March of last year, two days before Mikey Nose's three years of post-prison supervised release was slated to end.

According to a letter to the Court from Mancuso lawyer Stacey Richman, the government and the defense are still mired in exchanging so-called discovery material or evidence that each side is required to turn over to its adversary in preparation for any contested proceeding in the case.

While Richman and prosecutor Gibaldi have stated they are prepared to settle the VOSR with a negotiated guilty plea, they may be forced to have a contested trial before Garaufis if the judge refuses to accept a guilty plea to a charge that deviates from the original one.

That VOSR charged Mancuso with having "participated in the criminal affairs of the Bonanno crime family as 'boss' by associating with" two members of his family and with two members of the Colombo family in 2020 and 2021. It's unlikely Mikey Nose would since that would link him and four wiseguys to criminal activity and — in the eyes of his Mafia peers — make him a "rat."

The sentencing guidelines for a conviction of the VOSR, by the judge, or by a guilty plea, call for a return to prison for Mancuso of five to 11 months. The maximum he would face is two years.

Editor's Note: Gang Land is taking a slide next week. We'll be back with real stuff about organized crime on April 20. In the meantime, Happy Easter and Happy Passover to folks who celebrate those days, and to the rest of you too

[CornerBoy]

just like I wrote a few days ago.....even being seen at a party precludes one from getting one of these jobs. i was ranting about this type of thing.

Handsome jack's family is non affiliated. i know a childhood friend of his who named his dog after him. glad they won't be bound by these constraints anymore. they took it too far. rooting out corruption is one thing but these guys turned away a lot of decent ppl for saying hello at a party or having a cousin blah blah blah.

she was right to release him. 5 days for glasses? is it ineptitude or malicious delay?

Just give mancuso life--- society would be better off w/ out this guy or so I've read.

[Tonyd621]

Ragano- I understand you want to avoid prison and your going to say things that will hopefully blind the judge in your crimes and have a compassion and giving you a lower end sentence. But geesh, some of these guys sound like such a wus about it. I mean if I'm friends with these guy or another guy in his family, shut the f*ck up and do your time. Your acting like you can't handle what's coming and your airing out personal family stuff to get you off easy. I would not like it.

[Tonyd621]

just like I wrote a few days ago.....even being seen at a party precludes one from getting one of these jobs. i was ranting about this type of thing.

Handsome jack's family is non affiliated. i know a childhood friend of his who named his dog after him. glad they won't be bound by these constraints anymore. they took it too far. rooting out corruption is one thing but these guys turned away a lot of decent ppl for saying hello at a party or having a cousin blah blah blah.

she was right to release him. 5 days for glasses? is it ineptitude or malicious delay?

Just give mancuso life--- society would be better off w/ out this guy or so I've read.

How can you send Mancuso to jail when the state is constantly getting dressed down by the judge and every session it seems the state is f*cking up one thing after another they are not competent enough right now

[Little_Al1991]

The Colombo trial in October is something to look forward to

[Ivan]

wow that Ragano story was fuckin long

[newera_212]

So, Ragano is virtually blind but has no problem navigating a salvage yard every day for work?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for posting

[johnny_scootch]

A wiseguy slashing tires like a punk teenager!
What an absolute loser of a mafioso.

[Ivan]

also somehow managing to get ventilated by the NYPD over some traffic thing is just natural selection in action

[SonnyBlackstein]

also somehow managing to get ventilated by the NYPD over some traffic thing is just natural selection in action

Amen to that.

Darwin in action.

[Shellackhead]

So, Ragano is virtually blind but has no problem navigating a salvage yard every day for work?

Thought the same thing lol.

[bronx]

another gangster threatening a girl.. on a phone ..that was recorded ..then saying i'm i nice guy today.

[Antiliar]

another gangster threatening a girl.. on a phone ..that was recorded ..then saying i'm i nice guy today.

What gets me is that at 61 years old he's still using the excuse that he was so traumatized by seeing his father dead at 16 that he deserves leniency for his subsequent 45 years of crime. Is childhood trauma a permanent get out of jail free card?

[SonnyBlackstein]

another gangster threatening a girl.. on a phone ..that was recorded ..then saying i'm i nice guy today.

What gets me is that at 61 years old he's still using the excuse that he was so traumatized by seeing his father dead at 16 that he deserves leniency for his subsequent 45 years of crime. Is childhood trauma a permanent get out of jail free card?

Agree. Where's the self respect.

Play any card.