Gangland:2/25/16

[Dellacroce]

February 25, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Wise-Cracking Gambino Gangster: I'm Not Happy With The Job My Lawyer Is Doing

Mob associate Gennaro (Jerry) Bruno recently got what seems like positive information for him about the 2002 murder that he was charged with 16 months ago, according to a letter that federal prosecutors gave his attorney. It's a so-called Brady Letter that contains potentially exculpatory material. It states that latent fingerprints found at the crime scene do not match his fingerprints.

It's unclear exactly where the latent fingerprints were found, but according to an NYPD analysis of "prints of value" that was completed on November 13, 2007, they don't match Bruno's. Now, all Bruno has to do is get an investigator to look into that, and check out a dozen other possible suspects in the murder. And while he's at it, he might also get an audio expert to examine a crucial tape recording that he believes was "altered." Any one of those findings might improve his chances of beating the case. That is, if he ever gets to trial.

Bruno faces life behind bars if convicted, so his situation is no joke. But the imprisoned gangster is the one who has been cracking wise and complaining about the case in hand-written letters he's sent to the judge. The gist of the Gambino associate's gripes is that court-appointed attorney Thomas Nooter is doing a lousy job defending him against racketeering and murder charges.

"I will never want this court to think I am trying to go pro se," he told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge William Kuntz in one missive about Nooter, who has been his lawyer since April. "I know better. Having said that," he wrote, "I would rather have a fool for a client than be a fool without counsel." In the same letter, Bruno stated that if a leading case on the ineffective assistance of counsel he cited "were a plague or a sickness of some sort, I would have all the symptoms."

Last month, hours after attending a status conference before Kuntz, Bruno, 43, wrote that his rights under the 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments were "officially eviscerated" that day. He stated he learned about his scheduled court appearance when he was escorted to the judge's courtroom by deputy U.S. Marshals from the Metropolitan Detention Center right before the session began.

"Two minutes prior to entering your courtroom is when I was once again told (by Nooter) it would be in my best interest to waive my speedy trial rights," wrote Bruno, noting that he has "been told this" by several defense lawyers, including Nooter, "since I came to Brooklyn" in October 2014, following his arrest in Las Vegas where he had relocated a year earlier.

"The real 'status' of the case Your Honor," wrote Bruno, "is nothing has changed for me. No private investigator has gone out and tried to interview anyone" mentioned as a possible suspect in the Brady Letter his lawyers received back in November of 2014 that named 10 others as murder suspects in the slaying of Martin Bosshart.

"More important, no tape expert has been given to me to listen to the very popular tape that was made by the cooperator," wrote Bruno, who claimed that the tape recording made by turncoat Howard Santos has been altered. "I can hear it and I have an untrained ear," wrote Bruno. "If your honor has the time, please listen to the tape. I've been asking for a tape expert for over a year."

According to a transcript of the conversation filed in the case, the recording caught Gambino associate Todd LaBarca telling Santos that Bruno shot and killed Bosshart in January of 2002. LaBarca was convicted of murder conspiracy in Bosshart's killing by Manhattan federal prosecutors in a 2011 indictment, one in which Bruno was not charged.

In October, Kuntz ruled that the government could play the November 3, 2009 tape recording, which is the key evidence against Bruno, at trial.

On the tape, after LaBarca whispered the name "Jerry," Santos got LaBarca to state that Bruno — and not John Alite or Peter (Bud) Zuccaro, who are among those who've also been credited with the rubout — had been the gunman, according to excerpts filed by prosecutors in the case:

SANTOS: The suspects who killed Marty was Peter Zuccaro and Johnny Alite.
LABARCA: Yeah.
SANTOS: But, obviously, it was neither one of them.
LABARCA: That's, yeah.
SANTOS: The story I heard he (Bosshart) was taking a piss?
LABARCA: Yeah.
SANTOS: And Jerry just —
LABARCA: Yeah.
SANTOS: Boop. Right behind him?
LABARCA: Bup. Yeah.

The trial had been slated for next month. But earlier this month, it was put off at least until July 25, in order to permit an appeal of a Kuntz pre-trial ruling that the current case does not involve the same racketeering enterprise for which Bruno was behind bars from 2003 until 2013, and it is not barred by double jeopardy laws.

Bruno sent Kuntz a follow up letter last month asking that it be an addendum to court papers filed by Nooter, but the judge sealed it as defense strategy material that neither the government nor the public had a right to see.

After Bruno noted in his first letter last month that a government motion to have a second tape recording admitted into evidence "went unchallenged by my counsel," the jailed gangster derisively stated: "Of course, the government, when I say my counsel is not effective, they say that he is doing a great job. The Jets would love the Patriots if during the game all the cornerbacks stayed off the field."

Last year, when Bruno first complained that his lawyer had done a lousy job for him — spending a total of 90 minutes with him during the first 60 days as assigned counsel — prosecutors Kristin Mace and Nadia Shihata disagreed. "There is no indication that the assistance being provided by Mr. Nooter is ineffective," they wrote. They also asked Kuntz to seal the letter, which he did.

"If I had counsel that would work on the investigative issues as hard as he thinks I should waive my rights," Bruno declared, "then maybe your honor would look differently at this case."

Bruno also complained about being held without bail, stating that neither Nooter, nor any of his prior attorneys ever informed the Court about information he gave them that would have helped establish that he is not a danger to the community. A 2002 extortion victim still runs the same business and has not been hassled since Bruno pleaded guilty in 2003, he wrote. And in 2013, before he moved to Vegas, he lived in the same neighborhood as Alite and a second potential witness against him, Anthino Russo, and he never had even a cross word with them, or family members he ran into.

"One last thought, Your Honor," wrote Bruno. "The SDNY (Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office) indicted Martha Stewart once upon a time. Yet, with a tape that the Eastern District swears by, that the SDNY used as well, they did not indict me. Maybe my next lawyer will look into that?" We're pretty sure we know what point Bruno's trying to make about Martha Stewart, but he'd better be careful. Stewart, who thought she was smarter than her lawyers as well, was convicted.

Nooter declined to comment about the letters Bruno sent the court last month. Despite their disagreements, he told Gang Land, his client "has not asked for new counsel."

Law Enforcers Salute Mob Buster Eric Seidel

They represented virtually every law enforcement agency in the New York area two weeks ago when they descended on Pete's Tavern, the landmark bar and restaurant in Chelsea. They had no court order, or subpoenas in hand. They were going to a We Hate To See You Go Party for Eric Seidel, a low-key mob buster who packed it in after amassing an amazing record of successes in nearly 40 years as a state and federal prosecutor.

The best quote Gang Land got from the scores of current and former lawmen and women was a tag-team effort on whether or not Seidel was a "vindictive prosecutor." That was the allegation that lawyers for an online sports-betting guru lobbed at Seidel last month in a longshot effort to get an appeals court to throw out a gambling and money laundering indictment.

Eric is "a vindictive prosecutor," began a former assistant district attorney, "when it comes to lawbreakers," a onetime federal prosecutor chimed in to finish the sentence.

"He's one in a million," said Phil Scala, a former supervisor of the FBI's Gambino family squad who first worked with Seidel in the mid-1980s when he convicted John Gotti pal Anthony (Tony Roach) Rampino of heroin dealing. "Eric was a mentor to many FBI agents," said Scala. "He is an exceptional litigator, an esteemed professor, a magnetic team builder and a Man of Honor."

Seidel's record as a prosecutor, gleaned from the recollections of many who toasted him at Pete's Tavern, and confirmed by court records and Gang Land's files, bears out Scala's lofty praise.

He began his 38-year career in 1978 as an ADA in Brooklyn, where he tried 38 cases to verdict. Over the years, Seidel won convictions of corrupt union and public officials, cop killers, terrorists, and drug dealers, as well as mob associates and top wiseguys for numerous crimes in state and federal courts in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

As a homicide prosecutor in Brooklyn, he convicted Darryl Jeter, the killer of Irma Lozada, the first female NYPD police officer murdered in the line of duty. He also nailed Gotti-pal Andrew Curro, for the murder of 19-year-old April Ernst, even though the body was never found.

As head of the state Organized Crime Task Force for two years in the mid-1990s, Seidel oversaw that agency's signature labor racketeering efforts against Teamsters Local 851 at rackets-riddled Kennedy Airport. As a federal prosecutor in the late 1990s, he also investigated and prosecuted terrorism cases and convicted Mohammed Abouhalima of complicity in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing for driving his brother Mahmoud, the actual bomber, to the airport so he could flee to Egypt.

Since 1999, Seidel has prosecuted and overseen many organized crime and corruption cases as an ADA in Manhattan, where he served as the Rackets Bureau chief for DA Robert Morgenthau and was an organized crime supervisor for his successor, Cyrus Vance Jr. He oversaw enterprise corruption convictions of Luchese Administration wiseguys Matthew Madonna and Joseph DiNapoli, as well as several labor racketeering convictions, including one last year of Nicholas Bernhard, the former president of Teamsters Union Local 917.

He won a guilty plea for bribe receiving from State Senator Guy Velella, the late ethics-challenged Bronx pol who had long evaded prosecution. He also convicted the wealthy father-and-son restaurant tycoons, Arrigo and Giuseppe Cipriani, for evading $3.5 million in city and state taxes. Other successful targets were stock broker Stuart Winkler, for plotting to kill Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder, and Republican operative John Haggerty for the theft of $750,000 from Mayor Bloomberg's reelection campaign.

An adjunct professor at Fordham Law School, Seidel teaches a course there on organized crime, a course he also taught at Bar Ilan University Law School in Israel. He has also lectured about the federal witness protection program and other crime-fighting tactics in Sri Lanka, Poland, Lithuania, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia and the Czech Republic for the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Eric was tough but fair," said lawyer Bruce Maffeo, who along with fellow Brooklyn DA's office alum Eric Kraus, organized the Pete's Tavern toast for Seidel that was attended by more than 60 current and former members of the law enforcement community, as well as three sitting judges, and a few longtime adversaries.

"Eric epitomized all the best qualities of a prosecutor," said Maffeo. "He achieved an unsurpassed record of accomplishments over the years, and we're not likely to see another one quite like him."

Meanwhile, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan is still weighing whether Seidel is a "vindictive prosecutor," based on the organized crime-fighting strategy he described for an Israeli reporter in 2013: "Whatever the law allows you to do, do in a big way," he said. "Deprive them of funds. Make their lives tough on a daily basis. Work hard until you find enough evidence to prosecute and convict them. Then you have to impose very stiff sentences, with no parole. Inside the prison, make sure they have no access to their friends."

Seidel's now ex-boss, legendary former DA Robert Morgenthau couldn't make it to the send-off at Pete's Tavern. But in a phone interview, he had a few opinions — all good — to offer:

"We worked together on some very important cases," recalled Morgenthau. "Eric is a talented, hard driving prosecutor. He did very good work in rackets and as an organized crime supervisor. You know," added Morgenthau, who brought a special focus to political corruption while in office, "with all the talk about corruption in Albany, people forget that the Manhattan DA's office got there first (in 2004), with the bribery case against Velella. Eric did some excellent work in that case."

No Time Behind Bars For 'Historic' Colombo Turncoat

A hot-headed mob turncoat whose undercover work led to convictions of the Colombo crime family's top three mobsters and more than 40 other wiseguys and mob associates who were arrested in the FBI's 2011 Mafia Takedown Day roundup of 127 defendants has been rewarded with a sentence of no time behind bars.

In imposing a "time served" sentence for Thomas McLaughlin, who was involved in three gangland-style slayings in the early 1990s, Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan labelled the reformed gangster's cooperation as "historic" and "beyond anything" else he has come across since his appointment to the federal bench in 2006.

A tough, hardnosed gangster who spent nearly 16 years behind bars for dealing in drugs and guns and for his involvement in the bloody 1991-92 Colombo war, McLaughlin became a cooperating witness in 2009, a year after his release from prison. Over the ensuing two years he tape-recorded more than 200 conversations with wiseguys from several crime families.

In court papers, prosecutors Elizabeth Geddes and James Gatta stated that McLaughlin had provided "crucial" information that coerced the Colombo family Administration, as well as four capos, one acting captain, seven soldiers and dozens of associates to cop plea deals rather than go to trial.

The tapes and other evidence that McLaughlin provided also convinced two Gambino soldiers, a Bonanno mobster, two DeCavalcante mobsters, as well as turncoat Bonanno associate Hector (Junior) Pagan, the ex-hubby of Mob Wives co-star Renee Graziano, to plead guilty to various charges that the feds lodged against them, the prosecutors wrote.

At the one trial at which McLaughlin did testify, he helped the government convict his cousin, former family "street-boss" Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli, for racketeering charges, including murder. On the stand, McLaughlin fingered Gioeli for the 1991 slaying of low-level hoodlum Frank (Chestnut) Marasa.

He also informed the feds that the Colombos were planning to induct Ilario (Fat Larry) Sessa and three other wannabe wiseguys into the crime family on December 7, 2010, the prosecutors wrote. The induction was canceled by acting boss Andrew Russo after FBI agents were spotted in the days before the planned initiation rite.

"The events leading up to the scheduled ceremony and the aftermath of its cancellation were vividly captured on consensual recordings," wrote Geddes and Gatta. The tapes included conversations McLaughlin had with capo Anthony (Big Anthony) Russo and Sessa about the aborted ceremony.

"McLaughlin observed Sessa give Russo two plastic bags, one of which McLaughlin later learned contained the firearm to be used in Sessa's induction ceremony," the prosecutors wrote. In one talk, Fat Larry complained that he had to supply his own gun to get "made" and then had "to go all the way back to the place to get the pistol" when the ceremony was canceled.

"McLaughlin was able to obtain detailed admissions by many of these individuals," the prosecutors wrote, because of his "familial relationship" with Gioeli, and his proven "reputation for having committed serious crimes, including murder." His tough guy rep was also enhanced by refusing to cooperate with law enforcement during his long stretch behind bars.

But that stance changed when FBI agents confronted him with information linking him to Marasa's murder. McLaughlin quickly agreed to cooperate and wear a wire for the FBI against his old pals.

"He was disgusted with the mob," and his cousin Tommy Shots in particular, for shunning him completely while he was behind bars even though he was a "standup guy," said one source.

"Money? Gioeli never even sent him a Christmas card during all the time he was in prison," said the source.

McLaughlin did resort to his old tough guy, gangster mode a few times while working for the feds in 2010. And while it burnished his reputation with the mobsters he was running with at the time, it did cause him grief with the NYPD, and with the Probation Department for violating his post-prison supervised release restrictions.

"McLaughlin was involved in (two) physical altercations" that were fueled by alcohol at local watering holes, the prosecutors wrote. In May, he punched a bar patron who spilled a drink on him. In July, he punched out a valet at a nightclub, for which "McLaughlin was arrested and later required by the Probation Department to attend an anger management course," the prosecutors wrote.

Despite those transgressions, "the government still views McLaughlin's cooperation as substantial," wrote Geddes and Gatta.

Judge Cogan agreed wholeheartedly. "I'm confident that he's gone straight and he is going to stay straight," said Cogan, who declined to impose any period of supervised release for McLaughlin.

[phatmatress777]

Real boring gangland thanks for posting though!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cheech]

Yup. Another yawn fest. Surprised he hasn't mentioned the bonanno trial

[SonnyBlackstein]

Yup. Another yawn fest. Surprised he hasn't mentioned the bonanno trial

+1

Regularly curious about Capeci's subject choice. I'm not quite sure if Capeci understands his majority audience.
Surely an article on the Bonanno trial (concerning made guys and a captain) would be more apt than either proceedings concerning associates and/or the retirement of a DA.

Jerry if you're listening use this as a rule of thumb: the importance of stories should be based on the family structure itself. The more important the guy, the more important the story IE a made guy trumps an associate, a captain trumps a made guy... You see where I'm going. Articles about prosecutors and associates are secondary when there is material on a made Bonanno crew currently undergoing trial Jerry. Refer the rule. Its not that hard.

[Pogo The Clown]

It is pretty incredible how much damage a non-Italian associate like Thomas McLaughlin caused. You'd figure that in this day and age they would better insulate themselves but they never really learn.


Pogo

[SonnyBlackstein]

Top three admin members taken down by an associate is, unforgivable.

[B.]

Always funny when the proposed members have to supply the pistol/knife used in their own induction. Happened in Philly in the 1980s, too.

[willychichi]

Regularly curious about Capeci's subject choice. I'm not quite sure if Capeci understands his majority audience.
Surely an article on the Bonanno trial (concerning made guys and a captain) would be more apt than either proceedings concerning associates and/or the retirement of a DA.

Jerry if you're listening use this as a rule of thumb: the importance of stories should be based on the family structure itself. The more important the guy, the more important the story IE a made guy trumps an associate, a captain trumps a made guy... You see where I'm going. Articles about prosecutors and associates are secondary when there is material on a made Bonanno crew currently undergoing trial Jerry. Refer the rule. Its not that hard.

I read a couple of twitter postings by the Daily News that stated the Bonanno trial has been in recess since 2/19/15 and is not scheduled to resume until 2/29/16, not sure how accurate that is?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks Willy.

Still, a little background on those charged wouldn't hurt. Even that's pref to the articles posted.

[Cheech]

Exactly. Jerry Bruno again? He wrote a letter to the judge that got sealed who the fuck cares.

[123JoeSchmo]

Jeez what a snooze fest. Boring