Gangland September 21st 2023

[Dr031718]

The 'Smoking Gun' Murder Wiseguy Wants To Trump The Feds With His Impeachment Lawyer

The Bonanno soldier who's serving a life sentence for the "smoking gun" murder of a rival gangster on a Manhattan street corner in 1986 wants one of ex-President Trump’s attorneys to represent him.

Reason? Stephen (Stevie Blue) Locurto says his own lawyer "freezes up" like GOP Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell does these days and he doesn't think he can make it through a tough hearing.

Meanwhile, Bernard Freamon, a Seton Hall professor of law who has been representing Stevie Blue pro bono for ten years, has publicly questioned whether his client is off his rocker.

Welcome to the latest chapter in the "smoking gun" case, the tumultuous courtroom battle over the life sentence Locurto received for murder after he was found at the scene with — yes, a smoking gun in his pocket.

Locurto is fighting for freedom after nearly 20 years behind bars, claiming he would've taken a 20-year plea deal if he hadn't gotten a bad steer from an appeals lawyer who was working with his main defense attorney. And he is doing it his own way.

In a court filing on the eve of his scheduled hearing in his 13-year-old lawsuit, the mobster stated that his attorney, "is having trouble focusing for long periods of time." Because of that, Locurto stated, he doesn't trust Freamon to handle the questioning when he testifies at the hearing.

Locurto's seemingly bizarre filing came two weeks after Freamon publicly questioned his client’s sanity for wanting to speak to an FBI agent about "cooperating witnesses" who had nothing to do with the hearing, namely turncoat Mafia boss Joseph Massino and mob defectors James (Big Louie) Tartaglione and Frank (Curly) Lino.

In a jailhouse letter dated September 5, but filed last week, Locurto asked the magistrate judge overseeing the case to appoint David Schoen, the feisty, tart-tongued attorney who successfully defended the ex-President in his 2021 trial before the Senate, stating that he has "a longstanding relationship" with him.

"I am asking you to appoint David to be the one to question me on direct examination," Locurto wrote. "As an alternative," the mobster asked the judge "to be the one to question me."

Schoen, who has represented numerous mobsters over the years, does have a prior relationship with Locurto, who stated accurately in his second letter to the Court that the noted appeals lawyer will be unable to take part in Locurto's case, even if the judge agreed to appoint him.

"He has reached out to me by email and asked me to help him with his case," said Schoen, who took the gangster's request seriously. He told Gang Land he "would be happy" to assist Locurto in his lawsuit, but it was unlikely he'd be able to since he was "committed to two time-consuming cases through the end of November."

"I would also need time to learn his case," said Schoen. "I would need to know it well in order to be involved with the hearing and the examination of witnesses as he has requested."

As for his interest in the Bonanno turncoats, Stevie Blue told U.S. Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara in an August 25 filing that he wanted to discuss the trio of ex-mobsters who fingered him for a 1986 killing that became known as the "smoking gun" murder when Locurto was arrested with a still warm gun in his pocket minutes after he fired five shots into his victim in midtown Manhattan.

The next day, Freamon told Bulsara that "these witnesses have nothing to do with" his client's lawsuit, and asked the judge not to act on Locurto's request until he had a chance to speak to him later that day. The lawyer wrote that he had "every expectation that we will be able to work together to prepare for the hearing." But the letter "causes some concern with respect to his competency to assist me in preparing for the hearing and his fitness to proceed," he said.

Freamon noted that last year he had "raised a similar concern" about his client at a sealed ex parte conference with Judge Nicholas Garaufis who "ordered a competency evaluation of my client" that was "completed by a Bureau of Prisons psychologist." In February, the attorney wrote, Stevie Blue "was declared to be fit to proceed with the upcoming hearing."

Locurto got his back up about his psych exam a few times this year. In May, he complained that Judge Garaufis made public his order for his psych evaluation, but it was "nowhere to be found on the docket sheet," when "I passed your ordered psych evaluation with flying colors."

Freamon gave no other details about what had triggered his prior "concern" about Locurto's competence in his August 26 filing. When contacted by Gang Land, he declined to comment about that, or the complaints that Stevie Blue filed about him with the Court. "No comment about anything," he said.

A day later, on August 27, Freamon told Bulsara that he and his client had worked together on his case "for seven hours yesterday." He was "quite satisfied," he said, that Locurto was "competent to proceed." He stated that they were "actively working together to craft an agreed-upon approach" to take at his upcoming hearing.

The lawyer and Locurto, 63, agree that he will be the main witness in his evidentiary hearing to establish that ineffective assistance of counsel, by an appeals lawyer who told him that the longest prison term he could have received if convicted of the murder at trial was 20 years. If he had known he could have gotten life, he would have taken a 20-year plea dead instead.

In addition, Freamon stated in his August 27 letter, he was withdrawing his August 26 letter regarding the three Bonanno turncoats as Locurto had "instructed" him, and he was taking "no position" on Stevie's Blue's requests that were filed a day earlier.

Last month's brouhaha about the three former Locurto "friends" who testified against him wasn't the first one Stevie Blue and the Seton Hall professor had about the three turncoats.

In a court filing on July 6, Locurto complained to Judge Garaufis that "Freamon keeps accusing me of making up" stories about seeing the trio of cooperating witnesses while he was "a patient" in Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn and at an "undisclosed rehab center in Queens" in early 2021, specifically from January 18 until April 30.

"I do not want to fire my attorney," Locurto wrote in his motion that asked Garaufis to confirm for Freamon what seems like two hard-to-believe, if not preposterous assertions. The first one is that Massino and Tartaglione were both at the same rehab center as him in early 2021. The second one is that Lino was at the same hospital as Stevie Blue during the same time frame.

Locurto argued it was "very difficult, if not impossible" to proceed with Freamon as his lawyer if he believes that Stevie Blue "was making things up." The judge denied the motion because the "requested action" was unrelated to the pending lawsuit and was "outside the Court's purview."

Nine days after Freamon told Bulsara that he and Locurto were "actively working together to craft an agreed-upon approach" at his upcoming hearing, Stevie Blue told the judge otherwise in a handwritten letter he penned at cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Locurto's request to have Schoen appointed has not been addressed by Freamon, the feds, or the judge. Bulsara adjourned the evidentiary hearing that was slated to take place a week ago for unstated reasons that have nothing to do with the filings by Stevie Blue. In a joint filing this week, both sides asked the judge to hold the hearing between October 20 and October 27.

On September 7, two days after Stevie Blue asked to have Schoen appointed, he penned another letter from the MDC and reported that Schoen would "not be able to help me in court because he needs more time to get ready to prepare for my testimony."

Locurto again asked Bulsara to question him about the lousy legal advice he got from an appeals lawyer that he claims convinced him to go to trial instead of taking a plea deal for 20 years "if my attorney is unable to complete my direct examination."

"I should have known that one week is simply not enough time to prepare," wrote Locurto, whom prosecutors say should have known to listen to his assigned counsel Harry Batchelder in 2006 when he told Stevie Blue that he'd be sentenced to life in prison if convicted at trial of the so-called "smoking gun" murder he committed in 1986.

Judge Cuts $624,000 Restitution Request For Colombo Family Extortion Victim By More Than Half

In a surprise ruling, a federal judge has reduced by more than half the amount of money that a gaggle of gangsters will have to pay back to a union leader who was extorted by the Colombo crime family for 20 years, Gang Land has learned.

Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Hector Gonzalez agreed with an argument raised by a defense attorney for a convicted shakedown artist and sliced the government's request for $624,000 in restitution for the president of a construction workers union to $280,890.

Prosecutors say the union chief, Andrew Talamo, president of the United Construction Trades & Industrial Employees Union, was forced to ante up monthly extortion payments of $2600 to the Colombo crime family during a 20-year-long shakedown that ended in 2021.

To back up their claim, prosecutors cited an affidavit from Talamo, their key witness on the issue, stating that he forked over a total of $624,000 to the mob over a twenty year period beginning in 2001 when the shakedown began.

Backing up that figure, however, was a challenge since the union official only had bank records going back to 2011.

Those bank records, which have been produced by the feds, show that Talamo made monthly cash withdrawals of $2,600 from his bank account. Those withdrawals totaled $280,890 over the roughly nine year period from August 17, 2011 through December of 2020 when the shakedown ended.

The rest of the calculation is based on good faith. Prosecutors have asserted that Talamo was forced to pay out an additional $337,600 over the eleven year period between 2001 to 2011, by multiplying $2600 by 126 months. They did some simple arithmetic to add that to the $280,890 figure to determine that the total loss by the union official was $608,490.

But they also acknowledged it was a guesstimate: "This amount," they wrote, "(is) a very close approximation of the loss," that Talamo stated that he paid out to Colombo capo Vincent (Vinny Unions) Ricciardo and his cousin, Domenick Ricciardo, the feds wrote. They urged the judge to rule that a total restitution of $624,000 was called for in the case.

But Domenick Ricciardo's lawyer objected, saying that figure was way too high.

Attorney Robert Caliendo argued that Gonzalez should impose restitution for "the known loss of $280,890" and not "rubber stamp" the amount provided by the union official.

His client's plea agreement put the loss at "less than $500,000," the lawyer wrote, and without bank records going back to 2001, it was impossible to determine whether Talamo's amount is "incorrect, mistaken, or untruthful."

The judge agreed with the defense lawyer.

Prosecutors insisted their numbers were better. They stated that "given the consistency of payments over the nine-year period from 2011 to 2020" that were reflected in the bank records, there was "a strong basis" to conclude that Talamo had also made $2600 monthly payments "before mid-2011" and was entitled to receive the $624,000 he sought under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act.

They argued that a tape recorded discussion that Vinny Unions and mobster Michael Uvino had with cooperating witness Andrew Koslosky on May 13, 2021 about "the length and scope of the payment collection" by the mob also corroborated "some of the historical context of the extortion scheme."

In that conversation, the prosecutors wrote, the wiseguys stated that Talamo "regularly made the payments." They noted that Uvino stated during the taped talk that the union official "always sent the money" to Vinny Unions and Domenick Ricciardo, his cousin, and that Vinny Unions had stated his cousin Domenick, whom they called "Cuzzin," picked-up payments when Vinny Unions "first came home" from prison in 2008.

V. Ricciardo: Oh I know it did not stop. Why would you stop something when you got it coming out?
Uvino: I mean (Talamo) said, "No, I have always sent the money." And we said who? He said, "I was giving it to you, Cuzzin." (Domenick Ricciardo).
V. Ricciardo: Yeah, when I first came home.
Uvino: So, I'm sure he continued to send whatever he was sending so. I don't know what the number is.
V. Ricciardo: Why would you stop it?
Uvino: You wouldn't.

In his decision, Gonzalez wrote that while "a restitution calculation need not be mathematically precise," the approximation of $337,600 in losses from January of 2001 to June of 2011, "without further support, is too speculative." He imposed "restitution in the amount of $280,890, to be paid jointly and severally" by all the defendants who were convicted of extorting the union president.

In addition to Domenick Ricciardo, who concluded his 28-month prison term last week, the decision by Gonzalez applies to mobsters Uvino, Vincent Ricciardo, consigliere Ralph (Big Ralph) DeMatteo, capos Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico and Richard Ferrara as well as family associate Thomas Costa, who are all awaiting sentencing in the case.

Star FBI Agent & Prosecutor Tell Their War Stories In War Against The Mafia — Once The FBI Clears It For Publication

Two decades after they teamed up to convict the current and prior boss of the powerful Genovese crime family — Liborio (Barney) Bellomo and Vincent (Chin) Gigante — on racketeering charges in the same case, former FBI agent Mike Campi and prosecutor Dan Dorsky have written a tell-all book about their collective War Against The Mafia.

Campi is a decorated G-man who oversaw the three-year long undercover operation by turncoat Genovese gangster Michael (Cookie) D'Urso. That daredevil performance ultimately brought down Bellomo, Gigante and dozens of underlings. Among them was George Barone, whose involvement in the family's control over the New York and New Jersey docks goes back to the days of the movie classic, On the Waterfront.

Dorsky is a former assistant U.S. attorney who tried more mob cases than any other federal prosecutor, getting guilty verdicts every time. Those convictions include a few mobsters still behind bars; Colombo capo John (Jackie) DeRoss, Luchese soldier Michael (Baldy Mike) Spinelli, and Gambino wiseguy Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro.

In War Against The Mafia, Campi and Dorsky detail their roles, and that of D'Urso, in arresting and convicting Bellomo, Gigante, his son Andrew and nearly 50 other wiseguys and mob associates on a slew of racketeering and other charges that stemmed from the thousands of hours of taped talks that Durso made from 1998 to 2001.

The 350-page book, which will be published in November, details the investigative and prosecutorial tactics they and their fellow mob busters used to arrest 45 defendants — who included mobsters and associates from each the city's five families — on three indictments and a criminal complaint in April of 2001.

Campi and Dorsky teamed up with Durso to enable the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office to add a lone extortion charge against then Colombo underboss Jackie DeRoss to a pending racketeering case that went to trial in 2002. The jury acquitted DeRoss of every old charge, including money laundering and extortion conspiracy. But the feds were able to put the wiseguy behind bars when the jury found him guilty of shaking down the owner of a delicatessen with Genovese gangsters.

A year later, the trio also played major roles in the racketeering and murder trial of Genovese mobster Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito and associate Mario (The Baker) Fortunato. The jury found them guilty of the 1994 attempted murder of D'Urso and the killing of his cousin Tino Lombardi at a social club in Williamsburg. But an appeals court said the shootings weren't mob related, and Polito and Fortunato were released after serving a few years behind bars.

A Skyhorse Publishing promo teases that the book, which is still being vetted by the FBI, "is chock-filled with an array of stunning facts and truths" including the story of a "Catholic priest who fled America to save his life from the mob." That one sounds pretty intriguing since the Mafia generally leaves the church alone. They also promise an "explosive dark secret that almost undermined one of the most important undercover operations in the history of law enforcement."

Stay tuned. Gang Land hopes to spring a few details about that "explosive dark secret," sooner rather than later, as well as a few other nuggets, including the identity of the mob boss who Campi tape-recorded describing his underlings this way: "They're suckers – we just use them."

[AntComello]

Thanks for posting. Looking forward to this book.

[Ivan]

The book will have "the last" in its title. Anyone wanna bet me on this?

[AntComello]

The book will have "the last" in its title. Anyone wanna bet me on this?

1000%

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting.

[Little_Al1991]

Thanks for posting
The book seems interesting.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Appreciate the post.

[DonPeppino386]

Thanks for posting. Really looking forward to this book coming out.

[DonPeppino386]

For anyone interested here is some info on the book: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781 ... the-mafia/

[SonnyBlackstein]

For anyone interested here is some info on the book: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781 ... the-mafia/

Great stuff Peppino.

[DonPeppino386]

For anyone interested here is some info on the book: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781 ... the-mafia/

Great stuff Peppino.

Grazie Sonny.

[johnny_scootch]

The book will have "the last" in its title. Anyone wanna bet me on this?

1000%

Capeci wrote the title of the book in the article.

In War Against The Mafia, Campi and Dorsky detail their roles, and that of D'Urso, in arresting and convicting Bellomo, Gigante, his son Andrew and nearly 50 other wiseguys and mob associates on a slew of racketeering and other charges that stemmed from the thousands of hours of taped talks that Durso made from 1998 to 2001.

[sdeitche]

For anyone interested here is some info on the book: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781 ... the-mafia/

"Deavstated the mob in America." Great subtitle from a publishing perspective.

Hyperbole? Absolutely. But that's what you need to stand out on the bookshelves.

[chin_gigante]

From looking into it recently, the D'Urso tapes are really fascinating and I hope we get more transcripts in this book

[DonPeppino386]

For anyone interested here is some info on the book: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781 ... the-mafia/

"Deavstated the mob in America." Great subtitle from a publishing perspective.

Hyperbole? Absolutely. But that's what you need to stand out on the bookshelves.

Haha totally on the money Scott. I chuckled when I read that.