Gangland 8/10/2023

[Dr031718]

Luchese Wiseguy Really Likes Juice; A Healthy Alternative To Italian Cuisine

It's a new dawn, at least for one mobster. He's not investing his allegedly ill-gotten earnings in a calorie inducing Italian restaurant that features pasta, fried meats and fish, and cream-filled pastries like Anthony (Tough Tony) Federici and Alfonso (Little Al) D'arco, top echelon old-school wiseguys who fancied themselves excellent chefs.

This wiseguy's cash is in healthy foodstuffs.

For a few years now, Luchese wiseguy Anthony Villani has been the owner-operator of a very popular new wave juice bar business, Gang Land has learned. He sells fruit juices, smoothies, and fruit bowls of coconut, pineapple, and wildly popular acai berries and pitaya, a cactus-rooted, so-called "superfruit" from Central and South America that is now grown all over the globe.

Villani, 58, appeared along with acting Luchese boss Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis and four other mobsters in an FBI photo that was featured in an end-of-summer contest by Gang Land last fall. He is not happy that the feds, nearly a year after his arrest, still insist that he remain on home detention as he awaits trial for racketeering and gambling charges between 2004 and 2020.

That's because, just like Federici was at the Park Side in Corona, and D'Arco was at La Donna Rosa in Little Italy, Villani is a hands-on proprietor of his Playa Bowls eatery in Pleasantville in Westchester County.

But since September, when prosecutors James McDonald and Antoinette Rangel cited an FBI surveillance photo of Villani meeting DeSantis and four other mobsters outdoors in Jefferson Park in East Harlem "to avoid law enforcement eavesdropping and electronic surveillance," Villani has been toiling under an official order of home detention that cramps his style.

His home detention does allow him to work at his Playa Bowls franchise store in Pleasantville — a 15-minute drive from his home in Elmont. But according to the decision by Magistrate Judge Roanne Mann, Villani must get permission from Probation officials 48 hours in advance. He must drive straight there and back when his work is done, and be home no later than 7 PM.

Playa Bowls Pleasantville Ad The tiny Playa Bowls storefront, located on "historic Bedford Road," the street that links the central business district of Pleasantville to its "Old Village" business district, according to the village website, is one of two Playa Bowls franchises that Villani owns, according to court filings in the case.

Villani's second franchise store is in the tony village of Bronxville, just north of the NYC border. Villani owns that along with mob associate Louis (Tooch) Tucci, Jr., a codefendant who is charged with illegal gambling. Since Villani is not permitted to meet with Tucci — or his three other codefendants, unless their lawyers are present — he is barred from entering the Bronxville store, where Tucci works.

In April 2020, Villani and Tucci were picked up on a tape-recorded conversation at the Bronxville location in which they "discussed how bettors had been taking advantage of new casino games" that they had begun offering they customers "when sporting events were cancelled during the early parts of the COVID-19 pandemic," according to a filing by the prosecutors.

Playa Bowls Pleasantville Store"This ain't fucking monopoly money," Villani told Tucci, according to the filing. "The casino is supposed to be a score for us."

But gambling aside, the juice store owner still needs to get those nice fresh fruit ingredients.

In court filings with Brooklyn Federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, Villani's attorneys argue that their client's current bail restrictions prevent him from making unscheduled "trips to the grocery store" to buy the "necessary supplies" that his store often needs because it "frequently runs out of ingredients."

The house arrest restrictions also prevent him from leaving the store to "do many of the ordinary and necessary life tasks" of a businessman, like meet suppliers or "go to the bank to deposit money earned through his business," the lawyers noted.

Attorneys Ilana Haramati and Henry Mazurek petitioned Matsumoto to replace Villani's home detention with a 24-hour GPS monitor and a 10 PM curfew that would allow him to more effectively run his business that operates seven days a week from 9AM to 9PM.

That would also assure the government, the attorneys argued, that Villani, who, they assert, has not met with any "alleged organized crime figures" since his arrest, would continue to refrain from such meetings in the future, especially since their client is "actively engaged in plea negotiations with the government to resolve this case short of trial."

The attorneys didn't mention an unfortunate, uh, money-related wrinkle that has made life a little more difficult for their client since December of 2020.

Since then, Villani has been more pressed for cash than he was when he and Tucci jumped on the growing Playa Bowls band wagon and purchased two franchises, for $35,000 each, earlier that year. Playa Bowls, which two surfers began in 2014 when they opened a popup stand in front of a Belmar NJ pizzeria, now boasts 190 stores in 21 states, according to the Playa Bowls website.

The investment that Villani and Tucci, 59, needed to open each franchise, according to drfranchises.com, an online marketing agency that rates Playa Bowls as an "extremely profitable franchise," was between $168,675 and $435,085.

In December of 2020, the feds conducted several court authorized searches and seized a cool $1.1 million in assets from Villani and his cohorts, according to the indictment. The funds include $460,000 in cash they seized from Villani, $293,000 they grabbed from his personal bank account and another $340,000 they snared from two Playa Bowl accounts. They also snatched 33 pieces of jewelry – its value is unstated – from Villani.

The bottom line, Haramati and Mazurek wrote, is that the "strict conditions of home detention are greater than necessary to 'reasonably assure' the Court of Mr. Villani's continued compliance with his conditions of release." They argued that a 24-hour GPS monitor with a 10 PM curfew will allow the government to monitor his activity around the clock and allow him to also run his business.

Ilana HamaratiThat's not so, prosecutor Rangel countered in her reply that asked Matsumoto to keep the home detention in place.

The government "vehemently" seeks home detention because "an ankle monitor" could identify whether Villano went to "a prohibited place" but "nothing about with whom the defendant was meeting or the purpose of any meeting he took," the prosecutor wrote.

"It would not show if he went to a parking lot to pick up money from a bookmaker (as occurred here) or because he was shopping," Rangel wrote.

"It must be emphasized," she added, that Villani's "income has never principally come from his operation of smoothie stores" but from "a vast offshore gambling business that brought in millions in illegal cash." Any claim that the "operation of Playa Bowls is necessary to his livelihood is antithetical to decades of conduct by the defendant."

Judge Matsumoto agreed with the government. She noted that while "the Court commends Mr. Villani's purportedly perfect compliance with his conditions of release, such compliance is expected." And "given the nature of the charges" and Villani's alleged contacts with mobsters, the judge wrote, "the Court is not satisfied that the (current circumstances) warrant a modification of Mr. Villani's conditions of release."

Last week, on a request from Villani's lawyers, Matsumoto put off an August 15 status conference until October 11 "to accommodate ongoing plea negotiations which may result in a disposition of the case."

Who You Calling a Shell? Defense Lawyer Says Michael Michael's Construction Company Is For Real; He Should Get Just Three More Months Behind Bars

The feds say Mileta (Michael Michael) Miljanic is the leader of a violent Serbian-American gang who used a "shell company" to funnel millions of dollars in payoffs to Gambino mobsters. But his lawyer says Miljanic is a legitimate businessman who has served nearly two and a half years behind bars for defrauding the government and he should be released in time to spend Christmas at home with his family.

In a bid to rebut allegations that Miljanic's company, MDP Rebar Solutions was a "shell company" his attorney submitted pictures of the rebar work Miljanic's company performed on five major NYC construction projects from March of 2020 until February of 2022 to White Plains Judge Philip Halpern.

The lawyer also submitted millions of dollars in invoices that MDP submitted for payment for his company's work. They included invoices for the installation of steel reinforcing bars known as rebar that was used in The XI Project of two tall towers — one 26 stories high, the other 10 stories taller — containing 230 condos of concrete, steel and glass on Eleventh Avenue in Chelsea next to the High Line.

"The reason for the limited number of persons on MDP's payroll," wrote attorney Joseph Corozzo," was because "MDP was hired by contractors as a subcontractor on different construction projects" and "the contractors and MDP agreed that workers on the construction projects would be placed on the contractors' payrolls."

The FBI had "erroneously concluded that MDP" was a "shell company" because its limited probe "indicated that the only persons on MDP's payroll" were Miljanic, his relatives, and a person identified as Individual-1 in Corozzo's filing as well as in a government affidavit that Gang Land has previously disclosed is Gambino family consigliere Lorenzo Mannino.

Corozzo doesn't explain what work — if any — that Mannino performed to receive the whopping $696,000 he earned from MDP between 2018 and 2021. But the lawyer stressed in his sentencing memo that Miljanic is not convicted of any mob-relating crimes but solely for defrauding the IRS and the Small Business Administration of more than $750,000.

Specifically, Miljanic pleaded guilty to cheating the IRS out of $621,700 in taxes by understating his earnings in 2018 and 2019 — a conviction that ironically backs up his contention that MDP was not a "shell company" — and for defrauding the SBA by understating his earnings in 2019 and obtaining a $155,000 loan from the government agency.

Corozzo cited several reasons why Judge Halpern should sentence Miljanic below the low end of his 33-to-41 months sentencing guidelines. First and foremost, the lawyer cited the almost 30 months Michael Michael has served in horrific conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center where he survived a tough bout with COVID.

The lawyer also cited an intriguing quirk in the sentencing guidelines that have worked against Miljanic because he was a Queens resident in 2021 when he was arrested on weapons charges when the feds searched his apartment looking for information tying him to bid rigging and other construction industry rackets with the Gambino family.

If he had lived in Manhattan, Corozzo wrote, the gun charges would have been rolled into the charges for which he is slated to be sentenced, since they stemmed from an investigation by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office. His guidelines for both indictments would then have been 33-to-41 months, the same guidelines he faces for cheating the government of $776,700.

But because Michael Michael lived in Queens, the gun charges were lodged separately in Brooklyn Federal Court, for which he pleaded guilty and served 16 months. It turns out that Miljanic served 33 more days behind bars than he should have, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons because he was indicted in Manhattan before he was released.

There's not much that the BOP can do about that, but it's another reason why Halpern can consider imposing a below guideline sentence for Michael Michael, the lawyer wrote.

And since a "grouping analysis" shows that Miljanic's guidelines for "a unified prosecution would have been 33-41 months," Corozzo wrote, and since he was "sentenced separately to 16 months" in Brooklyn, "we respectfully request that the Court impose a below guidelines sentence of 17 months."

That adds up to 33 months, the lawyer wrote, which is the lower end of the prison term Michael Michael would have faced if he had lived in Manhattan back in 2021, which is all that is necessary to satisfy the needs for sentencing in this case.

It's not likely that prosecutors, who are slated to submit their sentencing memo in two weeks, will agree with Corozzo's recommendation about Miljanic, whom they have publicly stated is the leader of Grupo Amerika, a violent Serbian-American organized crime gang.

Michael Michael Prosecutor Quits For 'Other Employment' Someplace

Six weeks ago, prosecutor Jason Swergold, who supervised the bribery conviction of James Cahill, the ex-president of the New York State Building & Construction Trades Council and 10 other union officials and who personally handled the prosecution of mob associate Mileta (Michael Michael) Miljanic, informed several judges he was leaving the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office "for other employment."

In brief, three-sentence letters to the judges who presided over both cases, Swergold, who handled more than a few organized crime cases during his eight plus years with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office, merely announced his resignation and asked to be removed as "counsel of record" in the case.

Swergold, 37, a Boston College Law School grad who spent a year as an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts and three years as an associate for a Manhattan-based law firm before becoming a federal prosecutor, left without saying good bye, or good riddance, to Gang Land, which detailed many of his hits and misses.

He is still listed as an AUSA in Manhattan on his LinkedIn page, but the office spokesman, Nicholas Biase, did not respond to repeated calls and email requests for any information about Swergold's new gig, or what his departure means, if anything, to the office's investigation into alleged construction industry racketeering by Miljanic and Gambino capo Louis (Bo) Filippelli.

Late yesterday, after this week's column was written, Biase sent along an email address for Swergold. We've sent him an email. Stay tuned for further developments.

In a pre-trial filing in the Cahill case by Swergold in December of 2020, prosecutors alleged that Miljanic was the leader of Grupo Amerika and that he had been spotted meeting with Filippelli.

In the same filing, the prosecutors wrote that Cahill was heard stating that after he had gotten Filippelli "to intervene" with Michael Michael "to address a death threat" by Miljanic's gang against a Cahill nephew, Filippelli and Miljanic became fast friends.

"So what does Louis do?" Cahill was quoted as telling the wired-up contractor, on March 13 of 2020, "He goes partners with Michael Michael in the construction business, and they're happy as pigs in shit."

Last year, when Miljanic was about to complete the prison term he got for gun charges in Brooklyn, Swergold filed an arrest complaint in Manhattan alleging that Michael Michael had funneled millions of dollars in payoffs to Gambino family mobsters through a "shell company" that he controlled — an assertion that Miljanic's lawyer trashed in his sentencing memo.

U.S. Attorney news releases cite Swergold as a participant in many prosecutions that ended in convictions over the years, including one for extortion for Vincent Esposito, the son of the late Genovese boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante, and the racketeering conviction of Bonanno soldier Joseph (Joe Valet) Sabella.

There is no mention however, in any news release about the surprise acquittal of acting Bonanno boss Joseph (Joe C) Cammarano on racketeering. That was a big one — the first acquittal of a mafia leader since John Gotti pulled that off in 1987 — with the help of a corrupt juror who was received $60,000 in payoffs.

But then, no prosecutor is expected to win them all and Swergold chalked up some impressive victories while working for Uncle Sam.

[TommyGambino]

You can get rich off anything now, hipster nerds love that shit

[outfit guy]

Thanks for Posting, but this guy really has nothing to say any longer. The FEDs have nothing to feed him.

[Tonyd621]

Thank for posting. That franchise does not seem like a bad idea. I have seen alot worse franchises open up

[Little_Al1991]

Thanks for Posting, but this guy really has nothing to say any longer. The FEDs have nothing to feed him.

GL is not as good as it used to be but he’s still the best source we have

[Dante]

Thanks for posting.

[TSNYC]

This XI project has been such a disaster. Industry publications been reporting for close to 2 years about investigation of the projects GC/owner HFZ, which is owned by a bunch of israelis, being investigated and sued for stealing a few hundred million from investors. Incredible that project also had these gangsters on it as well. Think Campos company CWC worked on XI

Thanks for posting

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the post.

Is this the first 'official' statement of Mannino as Consig?

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for the post.

Is this the first 'official' statement of Mannino as Consig?

No Capeci revealed he was the consigliere and street boss back in December.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks Johnny

[Pmac2]

Thanks for posting

[newera_212]

Smart investment for Villani. Those Playa Bowls places do really well. Next to no overhead and inventory compared to the average food franchise. They sell Acai bowls for $15-16 and smoothies for ~$10'ish. It's a really simple and effective operation. I've been going to the location they have in Manalapan or Morganville or wherever it is for years now whenever I visit family near Freehold. I wouldn't normally conflate fast growth with success, but I think it's a huge moneymaker and every location they have does well.

[Pmac2]

I should buy a franchise restaurant. I'm probably to lazy. I am a union guy thou

[Manf]

Minor detail but he Villani in Elmsford not Elmont.

[Tonyd621]

A franchise that costs $35,000 and has that kind of ROI... I feel like it's too good to be true.