Gangland July 27th 2023

[Dr031718]

Lawyer: Oust Judge In Robbery Case Of Hotshot Restaurateur Who Shot One Of His Assailants

Insisting it's nothing personal, a defense attorney has asked the Chief Judge of Brooklyn Federal Court to replace a veteran jurist who was mysteriously assigned to the mob-linked robbery of a Staten Island restaurant owner in which the accused architect of the well-planned heist and the victim are both sons of organized crime figures, Gang Land has learned.

In a letter to Chief Judge Margo Brodie, lawyer Richard Levitt argues that the assignment of Judge Nicholas Garaufis to preside over the case against Colombo associate Vincent (Vinnie Mercedes) Salanardi "without explanation and with no apparent basis, is inappropriate" and "creates an appearance of unfairness" for his client.

Levitt's request follows an emphatic refusal by Garaufis to recuse himself from the case charging Vinnie Mercedes with the assault and robbery of Alessandro (Alex) Borgognone as he left his Baci Ristorante in 2021 with the day's receipts of about $10,000. The feds allege that Salanardi escaped with the loot even though Borgognone shot and wounded one of his assailants.

Salanardi, 31, of Staten Island, is the son of a turncoat Luchese mobster, Vincent (Vinny Baldy) Salanardi, who was arrested on racketeering charges along with other family members in 2002. Vinnie Mercedes and Marlon (Marl) Bellefleur, 48, of East Orange, NJ, were charged with the robbery of Borgognone in June. Both are jailed without bail as dangers to the community.

Borgognone, 42, is the son of a former Colombo crime family associate, according to FBI reports and court files.

Brodie has not responded to the unusual petition Levitt filed nearly a month ago. At a status conference two weeks ago, Judge Garaufis gave the defendants two months to review the voluminous discovery material the feds have turned over. He ordered the parties to inform him in September if they expect to resolve the case through plea negotiations or whether he should set a trial date.

Investigative sources told Gang Land this week that Vinnie Mercedes had "cased the joint" while dining with his girlfriend at the opulent 260-seat eatery in Dongan Hills that Borgognone opened in July, 2020. He observed that Borgognone usually left Baci Ristorante around 10 PM each night carrying a small black bag with about $10,000 in cash.

"He and his girlfriend were regular customers for a while," said one investigative source. "That's when he decided it would be easy pickings to rob him," the source said. "He didn't know that his victim would be armed, and would plug one of the perps, but he got away with it anyway," the source said.

"It's an only in New York story," the source continued. "Salanardi felt strongly that Borgognone had come onto his girlfriend a few times." That suspicion, the source told Gang Land, played a role not only in Salanardi's decision to rob the restaurant owner, but to instruct his robbery crew to assault him.

Gang Land was unable to get Borgognone, or the attorneys for Salanardi and Bellefleur, or prosecutor Garen Marshall, to talk about the case.

But in his detention memo, Marshall wrote that Vinnie Mercedes was seen on security video giving Bellefleur what looked like a "baton or baseball bat" to use on their victim. The feds also allegedly have evidence that Salanardi had stated "expressly" that "he wanted Bellefleur and the others to beat up (Borgognone) in order to teach (him) a lesson."

The surveillance footage also captured Salanardi pointing out the door that Borgognone would use to enter the parking garage to Bellefleur and robber Anthony Caruso. Borgognone allegedly shot Caruso when he was attacked after he walked through the door at 9:48 PM on November 21, 2021 "carrying a small dark colored bag" filled with cash that Vinnie Mercedes made off with.

Vinnie Mercedes had scheduled the robbery for that date, Marshall wrote, when he learned that Borgognone was planning a vacation trip to Florida on November 23.

Salanardi assumed that the entrepreneur whom the New York Times had featured as the owner of the Japanese restaurant, Sushi Nakazawa and Chumley's, was an easy mark. But as Marshall noted in his filing, Borgognone had recognized the danger of "carrying a bag containing thousands of dollars" and was "armed with a small handgun which he used to shoot" Caruso.

Sources say that Caruso, despite being shot three times, was able to drive his car out of the parking garage and meet up with Salanardi and give him the bag of cash before driving himself to a gas station and passing out. Taken by police to a nearby hospital, Caruso recovered, and sources say he has agreed to cooperate with the feds.

As for Borgognone, it turns out that the very successful restaurateur, who hails from the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, is more than a little familiar with the often mean streets of New York.

His mom and dad, Patricia and Calogero, have operated Patricia's of Morris Park, an Italian restaurant in the Bronx for more than 25 years. His father, a baker by trade, arrives at 6AM to make the desserts Patricia's serves, including tiramisu, almond biscotti and lemon tarts, according to a 2017 New York Times story about the popular Bronx eatery.

But, according to FBI reports obtained by Gang Land, for more than 15 years, beginning in the early 1990s, his dad was also a Colombo crime family associate and loanshark known as Louie Cannoli in a crew headed by Bronx-based wiseguy Dennis (Fat Dennis) Delucia.

In 2008, according to testimony at the 2012 racketeering trial of ex-acting Colombo boss Thomas (Tomy Shots) Gioeli, "Louie Cannoli was going around passing himself off as a made guy" to wiseguys in other families. For that reason, turncoat mobster Reynold (Ren) Maragni testified, Tommy Shots had dressed him down in front of Delucia and other Colombo mobsters in a Bensonhurst restaurant.

When an attorney tried to get Maragni to agree that the offense was minor because Borgognone "wasn't punished at all," Maragni disagreed.

"He was," Maragni said. "He was abused verbally and told to mind his business and actually the words that we use is, 'I want you to sit in a corner and I don't want you to come out of there. I want you to behave yourself,' and that's what he was told. That's enough to embarrass a man and de-pants him and that's all it took," he testified.

The elder Borgognone has never been arrested. Back in 2012, his son Alex denied that his dad had any ties to the mob. At first, he told the Daily News: "I don't even know what the Colombo family is, have a good day," before hanging up. Then he called back and said: "I'm sure my father was never in any meetings at restaurants, and it's coming from a witness that's a rat."

Alex Borgognone eschewed the wiseguy life that his dad allegedly opted to be part of years ago, but neither he nor any members of his family can be considered rats, even when a family member is an alleged victim of a crime. "The Borgognone family did not cooperate, in any way, with the U.S. Attorney's Office," an attorney for the family told Gang Land last month.

That's not the case with the father and son Salanardis, as Gang Land reported last month. The elder Salanardi, Vinny Baldy, flipped following his arrest in 2002. His son, Vinnie Mercedes, was a cooperating witness against a codefendant in 2014 when he was arrested for a string of gas station robberies in Staten Island.

Attorney Levitt declined to discuss either of the younger Salanardi's cases.

But in his letter to Judge Brodie, he wrote that while he has "great respect" for Judge Garaufis, he argued that because the government and the Court have declined to state why the case was assigned to him, and because there are "no facts that permitted the reassignment" under any court rule, the case should be returned to the prior judge, or reassigned to another judge if she is unavailable.

"It appears," Levitt wrote, that the feds requested the transfer to Garaufis even though "the only connection" between his client and the judge was that Garaufis had handled his father's case 20 years ago. He argued that the unexplained "non-random re-assignment" of the case to Garaufis "violates this Court's policy of random assignment and creates an appearance of unfairness."

Mikey Spat Refuses To Give Up; Makes Another Longshot Pitch For Compassion

He's been behind bars nearly 19 years, and will have no trouble doing another eight more months before he's eligible for the halfway house placement he's been assured he'll get. But ex-Colombo associate Michael (Mikey Spat) Spataro needs to get out now and he's come up with another longshot legal way to try and get a compassionate release — while his dad is still alive.

His father, 89, also named Michael, was a professional boxer from 1951 to 1958, except for two years as a soldier during the Korean War. He is suffering from cancer and debilitating mental illness and in need of care that the aging brother he lives with is unable to adequately provide, according to prior court filings in the case.

Spataro has asked Brooklyn Federal Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall to recuse herself and somehow have his case re-assigned to a Central Islip Federal Judge who is more familiar with the long, tortured history of his 19-year-old case who will be able to make a speedy, and hopefully favorable, decision on his motion.

Mikey Spat makes no mention of the extensive documentary evidence that former U.S. Marshal Michael Pizzi has obtained: Evidence that allegedly establishes that he was wrongfully convicted of having any involvement in the attempted rubout of mobster Joseph (Joe Camp) Campanella in 2001 — but which has been rejected or ignored by the government and the Court.

In the filing, Spataro merely asks that Judge Joanna Seybert, who presided over the case in which acting Colombo boss Alphonse Persico and capo John (Jackie) DeRoss were also charged with the attempted murder of Campanella, be assigned to decide Mikey Spat's motion for compassion that was filed on February 9, and was "fully briefed" weeks later.

Judge Seybert, Spataro's filing states, "will be unbiased" against him, and "because of her courtroom knowledge and experience" regarding the key witness against him, Giovanni (John the Barber) Floridia, Judge Seybert will be able to decide his compassionate release motion in a "more timely" manner than Judge DeArcy Hall, who was assigned the case in 2020.

During the trial, Seybert suggested that the government prosecute Floridia for perjury, a suggestion that prosecutors ignored.

Spataro questions why the Chief Judge in 2020, Roslynn Mauskopf, who was the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney in 2004 who signed his indictment, re-assigned the case to Judge DeArcy Hall. Instead, says Mikey Spat, Mauskopf could have re-assigned it to one of two judges who were familiar with the case, namely Judge Seybert, or Judge Raymond Dearie, who handled the prosecution of Floridia in 2004.

His filing notes that back in 2009, in response to a request that a pro-se motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence be handled by Judge Seybert, instead of his trial judge, the late Sterling Johnson, the government objected, citing Judge Johnson's familiarity with the case.

"Through its handling of the defendant's case from its inception, the Court has gained a familiarity with the case's detailed factual record, and reassignment of the defendant's latest post-trial motion would only entail wasteful delay or duplicated effort," the government stated.

"With the passing of Judge Johnson," wrote lawyer Jeremy Iandolo, Mikey Spat's compassionate release motion "must be transferred" to Judge Seybert since his motion "requires knowledge of the pertinent underlying case facts in conjunction with Spataro's individualized circumstances" that "must be looked at with urgency" because of his client's desire to care for his ailing father.

The ball is now back in the judge's court.

Lawyers Say Murderous Mob Boss Should Get A Compassionate Release

How can a federal judge possibly grant a compassionate release to Luchese Mafia Boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, who was convicted of nine murders at trial? It's simple, his lawyers say. Just follow the law, and focus on who he is now, not who Amuso was back in 1992, when he was found guilty and sentenced to die in prison.

Today, they say, Amuso is an 88-year-old inmate who suffers many ailments that are addressed mostly by fellow inmates since his prison is "understaffed and ill-equipped to provide one-on-one care by a medical aid that would be typically required in the outside world for the end-of-life care of an elderly, sick, and immobile person (such) as Mr. Amuso."

In objecting to a compassionate release, they argue, the government ignores "the central issue before the Court," which is not whether "Amuso deserves a second chance at life, but whether there currently exists compelling reason to warrant his compassionate release at the immediate end of his life."

Attorneys Anthony DiPietro, Mathew Mari, and James Froccaro concede that Amuso was guilty of "serious" crimes, although they do not mention that he was found guilty of nine murders. But they argue in a court filing that "there remains a fundamental truth that no person should be denied a death with dignity, even prisoners whom the Government cast as unworthy."

The government's opposition, they told Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block, "fails to address the compelling circumstances presented by Mr. Amuso's advanced age, rapidly failing health, and immobility — which are well documented by underlying medical records."

Instead, the lawyers say, prosecutors have lodged "ad hominem attacks against" the Amuso of 1992 that do not address the irrefutable claim that he is "an elderly and ailing prisoner" with a perfect "institutional record" during his 32 years behind bars. Amuso, his attorneys argue, should not "perish in a prison cell when the Court possesses the perfect power, provided by the First Step Act, to compel the end-of-life care of such a prisoner to his family."

"Punishment need not be aimlessly held in perpetuity because it was once a legally justifiable result," they argue. Instead, they suggest that Block release Amuso and "impose whatever strict terms of supervision (the judge) deems necessary to facilitate such a humane outcome."

They argue that citing Judge Block's refusal to grant a compassionate release to ex-Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso as a reason to deny Amuso's motion for compassion is misplaced.

Casso "was a uniquely unremorseful and heinous offender" who admitted "participating in 25 murders" as well as "plots to kill a federal judge and prosecutor," they wrote. He also breached his cooperation agreement and prison rules by "trying to escape from custody, smuggling in contraband, assaulting other inmates and attempting to tamper with other criminal proceedings," they wrote.

The attorneys also slammed the government for relying on the word of turncoat mobster John Pennisi that Amuso was still running the crime family. They noted that the ex-gangster never met their client and that his public statements following his testimony at three trials that his dead grandparents told him to flip is strong evidence that he "suffers mental delusions."

The lawyers note that Pennisi "will never be utilized again as a cooperating witness," since he claimed in a podcast "that the spirit of his deceased loved ones had provided him a message, by shaking the structure of his home and the dishware therein for hours on end, to cooperate with the FBI" in 2018. They submitted a New York Post article about his earth-shaking experience that was based on an account Gang Land published on June 3, 2021.

The government's use of Pennisi to oppose Amuso's release because his son-in-law, Joseph DiBenedetto, "is instrumental in delivering messages to Amuso in prison," should be ignored, they wrote, because "DiBenedetto has not visited Mr. Amuso since the 1990s and the two rarely speak except to exchange holiday gratuities on a recorded prison phone line."

But if the government insists on crediting Pennisi's five-year-old old accounts that Amuso is still running the crime family and should not be released, the lawyers asked Judge Block to schedule a hearing to allow them to question Pennisi about his claims.

[Dr031718]

Chin posted in mugshots section but I’ll put it here as well.

Vic Amuso

[Little_Al1991]

The lawyers note that Pennisi "will never be utilized again as a cooperating witness,

That surely affects the case against DeSantis and Dellorusso. GL said prosecutors were planning on using Pennisi at trial against them.

[AntComello]

Either Pennisi really is a wacko or he just didn’t wanna testify ever again and made the ghost story up lol

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for Posting

[Ivan]

if that's a recent photo then The Terminator looks great for a dying 88 year old man

[Southshore88]

Thanks for posting

[AntComello]

if that's a recent photo then The Terminator looks great for a dying 88 year old man

I don’t think it’s recent. There’s another pic of him floating around and he looks wayyyyy older.

[Dr031718]

if that's a recent photo then The Terminator looks great for a dying 88 year old man

I don’t think it’s recent. There’s another pic of him floating around and he looks wayyyyy older.

Are you referring to the below photo?

[chin_gigante]

The file name on the photograph is amuso-vittorio-2023.jpg, which would seem to indicate it's from this year. He also looks a lot older, at least to me, in this mugshot than he does in the photograph with his late wife

[Dr031718]

The file name on the photograph is amuso-vittorio-2023.jpg, which would seem to indicate it's from this year. He also looks a lot older, at least to me, in this mugshot than he does in the photograph with his late wife

I agree. His wife passed a few years ago I think his eyes and face look older in the recent ga gland photo IMO

[AntComello]

if that's a recent photo then The Terminator looks great for a dying 88 year old man

I don’t think it’s recent. There’s another pic of him floating around and he looks wayyyyy older.

Are you referring to the below photo?

Yes it is but now that I compare the 2 pictures I could be wrong lol

[AntComello]

Maybe it’s because the one with his wife he looks like gentle old man

[SonnyBlackstein]

The lawyers note that Pennisi "will never be utilized again as a cooperating witness,

That surely affects the case against DeSantis and Dellorusso. GL said prosecutors were planning on using Pennisi at trial against them.

Very interesting point.

He'd likey be a linchpin in the case. If his cred's shot, that's huge for DeSantis etc