Gangland September 14th 2023

[Dr031718]

Mets Season Tickets, Artwork, And Cash: Bribes A Top Aide For The Mayor Is Charged With Getting From Friends & Mob-Connected Pals

For six years, as Eric Ulrich ponied up to Gambino and Bonanno wiseguys and mob associates, and rose from City Councilman to senior advisor for Mayor Adams to NYC Buildings Commissioner, he received more than $150,000 in bribes, much of which he gambled away at a mob connected social club in Ozone Park, authorities stated yesterday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg stated that "at every possible turn" Ulrich, 38, used political clout he gained from "taxpayer-funded positions" he enjoyed "to line his pockets" with cash bribes. The payoffs came from "businessmen, friends, and associates," including a pair of brothers, Joseph and Anthony Livreri, who have reputed ties to the Bonanno and Gambino crime families.

But the biggest alleged gangster arrested yesterday, according to Bragg and court filings in the case, was Ulrich himself. He sold himself as a Mr. Fixit who used his clout to grease the wheels at a half dozen city agencies including the Departments of Buildings, Health, Consumer and Workers Protection, Correction, City Planning, and Fire Department until the day he resigned as Buildings Commissioner in November.

Alvin BraggIn a letter to Supreme Court Justice Daniel Conviser, assistant district attorney Guy Tardanico stated that "on an almost daily basis," during the year between November of 2021 and last November, Ulrich "engaged in conduct antithetical to his oath of office" and plotted to use his "access to senior City officials to benefit his coconspirators and himself."

In return for his services, which are detailed in five indictments, Tardanico wrote, Ulrich received an apparently costly "bespoke suit," valuable artwork, a premium New York Mets season ticket package worth about $10,000, plus "tens of thousands of dollars" in bribes from the Livreri brothers, Joseph, 55, and Anthony 51, the owners of Aldo's Pizzeria in Queens.

It's a dining spot with a long history in Gang Land. In March of 1983, when it was the Altadonna Restaurant, the eatery at 137-01 Cross Bay Blvd. was a favorite of John Gotti. It was also the scene of a marathon 14-hour lunch that was hosted by Gotti pal Sal Reale and attended by then Queens DA John Santucci, Peter Prezioso, the head of the NYPD's Intelligence Division and a Police Lieutenant for the local 106 precinct.

In 1986, when Newsday wrote about the high-level lunch — the place was closed, the blinds were pulled, and the diners used the entrance through the kitchen that Gotti liked to ensure that the group would not be seen entering — it triggered several probes. The inquiries uncovered no wrongdoing but led to the resignations of Santucci and Prezioso.

"Arriving around noon, the men spent the next 14 hours eating and drinking at two long tables that (owner Joseph) Altadonna had set up," Newsday NYPD columnist Leonard Levitt wrote in his 2009 book, NYPD Confidential. "When the party broke up at 2AM, Reale paid the bill. It came to $1825."

Years later, Reale told Levitt that the Altadonna lunch had been dreamed up and sanctioned by then Gambino boss Paul (Big Paul) Castellano and was a lofty effort by the businessman-mob boss to help Prezioso become police commissioner.

Ulrich's involvement with the eatery's current incarnation was much more basic in nature.

In February of last year, the brothers Livreri, who have owned numerous pizzerias and Italian restaurants over the years, reached out to Ulrich for help when Aldo's failed a health inspection and the Health Department had ordered it shuttered, according to Tardanico.

"On February 15, 2022, the day after Aldo's closed" it's doors, Tardonico wrote, Ulrich, who had known Joseph Livreri for years and had hired him as an office staffer in 2019 when Ulrich was a councilman, "solicited $300" from his former employee for help in getting the place re-inspected quickly.

When he demanded his fee from Joseph Livreri, Tardanico wrote, Ulrich was gambling at the 89th Street Café, a "private, illegal gambling club" in Ozone Park that is "owned and operated" by Joseph Livreri, according to the district attorney. "The next day," the ADA wrote, "Ulrich elevated Aldo's re-inspection issue to the Mayor's Chief Advisor" and got quick action. "Aldo's reopened on February 17, 2022."

A month later, the brothers Livreri went to bat for the Fortunato Brothers, who have operated a landmark bakery in Williamsburg since 1976 with ties to the Genovese family through owner Mario (The Baker) Fortunato. The Fortunato Brothers Café Pasticceria had been "shut down due to a fire," the prosecutor wrote, but was deemed ready for business again by the Furtunato brothers.

On March 22 of 2022, Tardanico wrote, the DA's office listened in as Joseph and Anthony Livreri discussed their roles as middlemen in obtaining a $4000 payoff for Ulrich from a nephew of one of the owners of the Fortunato Brothers Bakery:

Anthony: So what happened?
Joseph: Nothing, he [Ulrich] got it done. He [the owner's nephew] got what he needed and he said he was gonna stop by you, so. When he stops by you, don't [U/I], you know what I'm saying?
Anthony: I'm sorry?
Joseph: Don't call, whatever. I told him [Ulrich] tomorrow we'll see him.
Anthony: Yeah, no problem.
Joseph: No, I'm just saying, so.
Mario FortunatoiAnthony: But he [the owner's nephew] knew the four, right?
Joseph: Yeah, he said to me, 'I gotta stop by your brother.' Whatever. 'Yeah, OK.'

"The next day," Tardanico wrote, "Joseph Livreri met with Ulrich and gave him his portion of 'the four,' a reference to $4,000. Ulrich made two immediate phone calls to tell people he 'just got paid,' and made a $1,000 deposit at a Chase ATM."

For years Ulrich has had friendly relations with members and associates of the Gambino and Bonanno crime families who live in Ozone Park and Howard Beach, the Queens neighborhoods he represented as a City Councilman from 2009 until 2021.

In 2014, he praised Gambino soldier William (Old Man Willy) Pazienza as an "overall good character" who was "a kind person and devoted family man" at his sentencing in 2014 for his role in a scheme that recruited Eastern European women to work as dancers at Queens strip clubs.

In 2018, Ulrich wrote a similar letter on his official City Council stationary for bookmaker Robert (Rob) Pisani, a underling of Bonanno wiseguy Ronald (Ronnie G) Giallanzo, when he was about to face the music for conspiring to collect an illegal debt.

"He really is a good guy," wrote Ulrich, noting he'd known Pisani "for seven years and consider(s) him a personal friend. "Mr. Pisani is a kind person, devoted family man and a selfless individual," wrote Ulrich.

Attorney Samuel Braverman stated that Ulrich, who faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the top bribery count in his indictments, maintains his innocence and "looks forward to his day in court where only the evidence matters, not charging documents or press releases.”

The attorney for the Livreri brothers, who face up to seven years behind bars if found guilty of the top bribery counts they face, did not respond to a Gang Land request for comment.

No Tears On His Pillow For This Little Anthony

Bonanno capo Anthony (Little Anthony) Pipitone will celebrate his 51st birthday at a Long Island restaurant with his family on Saturday night. When he does, Gang Land has learned, he'll add to his already impressive record of most furloughs from home detention granted to a mobster dubbed a dangerous felon while awaiting trial for racketeering charges.

It'll be the 29th time that Pipitone has been allowed to leave his Deer Park home for one reason or another since his August 16, 2022 arrest. And it will be the second consecutive birthday he'll be able to celebrate at a Long Island eatery with his family while on home detention, according to court filings in his case.

Little Anthony, his brother Vito, and an underling are charged with running several illegal gambling operations with the help of an allegedly corrupt ex-Nassau County detective from 2012 until 2022, including one they ran along with the Genovese family at a Lynbrook ice cream parlor that earned $10,000 a week.

Last year, according to a court filing, Little Anthony enjoyed a relatively modest, two and a half hour dinner party with his wife and three children while celebrating his 50th birthday at Prime, An American Kitchen & Bar in Huntington on Saturday September 17, 2022, from 8PM until 10:30 PM.

This year, though, Pipitone has planned a much longer, more elaborate birthday bash, one "from 5 to 11 in the evening" at an undisclosed "local restaurant" on Saturday. That's according to a recent request by attorney Elizabeth Macedonio that has been approved by Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Eric Vitaliano.

No other details about the event are filed. But it is possible that Pipitone expects to plead guilty soon and figures he won't be getting a furlough next year to celebrate his 52d birthday with his wife and kids next September.

Sources say no plea deals have been offered yet, but prosecutors are slated to offer plea agreements to the defendants before the next court date, September 27, according to the court docket sheet.

A few days later, Little Anthony will enjoy his 30th furlough from home detention to attend Parents Weekend at the Connecticut college that his son attends. That's the same trip he was allowed to take last year. Vitaliano decided Pipitone can attend either Saturday September 30 or Sunday October 1, but not both days. He ordered Pretrial Services to determine the specifics.

Pipitone's home detention permits him to leave his home for his construction industry job from 4:45 AM until 6:45 PM six days a week. But it requires him to obtain permission from the judge to leave his home for any other reasons "except for attorney visits, court appearances and necessary medical treatments."

Since he was released on a $2 million bond secured by two homes owned by a brother and a sister-in-law, Pipitone has filed 20 letter motions seeking 44 modifications of his bail conditions for a variety of reasons. All of them "involved his desire to attend family events," Macedonio noted last month in a request that Judge Vitaliano rejected.

In that filing, Macedonio noted that while the "government asserts" that Pipitone is a "danger to the community" because he is a reputed Bonanno crime family member, there "is no allegation of violence or extortion" in any of the alleged crimes that "extend back to 2012," and that all the charges against her client "involve gambling."

She also noted that despite "years of wiretaps" and other tape-recorded talks that the feds have turned over to the defense, "Pipitone is captured on one recording that lasts for less than one minute" and "there appears to be no surveillance" of her client. The "government's case," Macedonio asserted, "will therefore depend largely on cooperating witnesses."

Macedonio didn't mention that one of those cooperating witnesses is turncoat acting capo Damiano (Danny) Zummo, who identified Little Anthony Pipitone as his skipper during the video-taped Bonanno crime family induction ceremony he conducted in a Hamilton, Ontario hotel room in November of 2015, as Gang Land disclosed last month.

She also didn't mention a five-year stretch Pipitone served for a heroin trafficking conviction, or the four year sentence he received for a violent stabbing he committed for the Bonanno crime family.

In her letter, the lawyer asked the judge to permit Pipitone to leave his home at 10 AM on days he didn't work and have a 10 PM curfew each night. If not, she asked that her client be allowed "to attend two family events a week" outside his home as long as he gave prior notification to Pretrial Services.

Vitaliano denied that motion entirely, but a week later, the judge granted his request to attend a daylong Parents Day event at his son's college, plus a six-hour furlough to celebrate his 51st birthday on Saturday night when Little Anthony will be blowing out a lot of candles.

Feds Raise The Hurdles For Stevie Blue

The Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office has pulled out all the stops against the efforts by Bonanno mobster Stephen (Stevie Blue) Locurto to toss the life sentence he received for his "smoking gun" murder conviction. Locurto has claimed for years he would have taken a guilty plea and a 20-year prison term if he had gotten sound legal advice before he went to trial in 2006.

The feds made that clear in a flurry of filings by Kristin Mace, Chief of the Criminal Division of the office, on the eve of Locurto's scheduled hearing this week. The filings came shortly after another prosecutor had stated that the government would use only court records to rebut Locurto's claim that he would have taken a plea offer of 20 years if he hadn't gotten lousy legal advice from an appeals lawyer.

Instead, Mace wrote, she intends to call Locurto's trial lawyer Harry Batchelder, who has stated in an affidavit that Stevie Blue's contention "that he did not know that the sentencing judge would impose the maximum possible sentence for a cold blooded execution style murder" was "a bald faced lie." Batchelder insists he told the mobster that he was likely facing a life sentence.

Locurto had gotten lucky once before. His testimony convinced a state court jury in 1997 that he hadn't killed his victim even though he was arrested with a still warm gun in his pocket minutes after the killing in what Blue and his mob buddies dubbed the "smoking gun" case.

But he was unable to pull that off again when he took the stand at his federal court trial in 2006.

Mace has also added mob busting FBI agent Joseph Costello as a possible rebuttal witness against the testimony of Stevie Blue. Costello, the case agent in the recent racketeering convictions of the Colombo family hierarchy, also oversaw the office's full bore effort that put Bonanno boss Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso back in prison for 11 months last week for violating his supervised release.

And even though Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who presided over Locurto's trial and sentenced him to life, has ruled that Stevie Blue can prevail in his suit even if he doesn't prove that the feds had made a "formal" plea offer calling for 20 years in prison, Mace informed U.S. Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara that the feds believe that "as a matter of law," the mobster's claim must fail.

The veteran prosecutor laid out what seems like a series of insurmountable hurdles that LoCurto, and his attorney, Bernard Freamon, will have to overcome in order to win his claim, even if they can beat back the government's legal efforts to derail the gangster's 13-year long lawsuit.

Freamon, a professor of law at Seton Hall University Law School, has often cited a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reversed a conviction of a Michigan man who received bad legal advice and rejected a plea deal and received 30 years in prison after trial, as the key to his client's victory. In that case, and in Stevie Blue's, Freamon has argued, "The result would have been different if he had gotten the right advice."

That's wrong, Mace wrote.

Locurto cannot prevail, Mace argued, unless he proves that a "plea offer was extended;" that he would have pleaded guilty to racketeering and the charged murder, and that the Court would have accepted a guilty plea and given him 20 years. In addition, she wrote, Locurto must prove he had a lawyer-client relationship with the appeals lawyer who gave him "faulty advice;" that Stevie Blue was not aware "he might receive a life sentence" if he went to trial, and that Locurto "did not receive competent legal advice regarding his sentencing exposure" from Batchelder.

Those sound like pretty high hurdles to overcome. But Freamon didn't seem too worried about that. In his last filing, he asked the judge to add an extra day to the hearing if the government isn't able to get to Batchelder, who was originally slated to testify today via a remote hookup from the federal court in New Hampshire.

But this week, for unstated reasons that neither party would explain to Gang Land, Judge Bulsara adjourned the hearing and directed the parties to send him a joint letter and propose dates for a hearing in "late October or early November."

[Dapper_Don]

thanks for posting

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting.

[mlm0047]

Pipitone sounds like a renegade, heroin and stabbing arrests?

[Cheech]

Pipitone sounds like a renegade, heroin and stabbing arrests?

whatya wanna make? altar boys?

[NYNighthawk]

I'm both shocked and stunned at the amount of furloughs Pipitone has gotten so far!

[mlm0047]

Pipitone sounds like a renegade, heroin and stabbing arrests?

whatya wanna make? altar boys?

No probably one of the few young guys that actually has street credibility

[Pmac2]

Any body have a back story on steve locurto? I thought he was one of the guys who flipped I guess he didn't. Whose crew was he. I'm guessing cantrella

[Cheech]

Pipitone sounds like a renegade, heroin and stabbing arrests?

whatya wanna make? altar boys?

No probably one of the few young guys that actually has street credibility

Just joking.

[rolotomasi]

thanks you

[Tonyd621]

I'm both shocked and stunned at the amount of furloughs Pipitone has gotten so far!

Are these furloughs from home or prison?

[Cheech]

reminder that chin did a good right up on Pipitone

viewtopic.php?f=47&t=9206

[Dr031718]

I'm both shocked and stunned at the amount of furloughs Pipitone has gotten so far!

Are these furloughs from home or prison?

From house arrest/home confinement

[Blunts]

Thanks for posting.

[Pmac2]

Pipitone guy seems like a serious guy. Was he made under massino really young. Who did he come up under. Surprisingly I've never heard pennisi speak about him. There close an age and queens guys.