GL News 16th November 2023

[AnIrishGuy]

FBI Digs For Rubout Victims As Feds Tag Gambino Capo & Three Mobsters As Racketeers

FBI agents this week began digging up two large Orange County horse farms about 65 miles north of New York City in a grisly search for the remains of rubout victims in connection with a joint NYPD-FBI investigation into the Gambino crime family, Gang Land has learned.

An FBI spokesman would only confirm that agents have been involved since Tuesday in what he termed "law enforcement activity" at the two large multiacre farms in Goshen and Campbell Hall. But federal law enforcement sources tell Gang Land that the activity is in connection with an ongoing "investigation into the Gambino crime family."

The two locations, on Hampton Road in Goshen, and on Hamptonburgh Road in Campbell Hall, are each owned, according to Property Shark, an online real estate database, by persons who have the same surname as a mob associate who was charged last week along with nine Gambino mobsters and associates with a racketeering conspiracy going back to 2017.

Sources would not confirm that the federal probe was connected to that case.

Gang Land contacted the listed owner of one of the properties, who confirmed that FBI agents were digging up his horse farm, but he stated that he had no idea what they were looking for. He added that he was not related to the defendant with the same surname who was indicted along with Gambino capo Joseph (Joe Brooklyn) Lanni and nine others last week.

Lanni allegedly oversaw multimillion dollar racketeering schemes for the Gambino crime family. But the feds say Joe Brooklyn is a loose cannon who, in a senseless rage, tried to burn down a mom and pop restaurant two months ago.

Lanni's arson attempt ended when a low level associate who with him that night intervened, Gang Land has learned.

Lanni, who had been free on bail on state charges of assaulting the husband and wife owners of a Toms River eatery on Labor Day weekend, was indicted on November 8 along with three other Gambino family members. Among those charged with a litany of crimes as part of a six-year-long racketeering conspiracy were a duo who worked for a demolition company whose owners were extorted by the crime family.

Lanni, 52, the ex-demolition worker wiseguys, Diego (Danny) Tantillo, 48, and Angelo (FiFi) Gradilone, 57, and associate Kyle (Twin) Johnson, 46, an alleged crime family enforcer charged in several violent assaults, were all detained without bail as dangers to the community following the takedown.

The charges include extortion, wire fraud, arson, witness retaliation as well as labor racketeering consisting of bid rigging and stealing from union pension funds.

Companies belonging to soldier James (Jimmy) Laforte allegedly "kicked up" more than $1.5 million in tributes to the Gambino crime family. The tribute payments were allegedly disguised as so-called "loans" to Lanni-controlled companies, according to court filings in Brooklyn Federal Court. Laforte, 46, was already detained without bail in Pennsylvania for allegedly bashing a Philadelphia lawyer over the head with a flashlight.

The "kick ups" from Laforte, prosecutors Matthew Galeotti, Anna Karamigios, and Andrew Roddin stated in a detention memo, were from two companies that are "owned or operated by LaForte," namely Complete Business Solutions Group, Inc. (CBSG,) which is also known as Par Funding, and Eagle Six Consultants.

Laforte, and his brother Joseph, who founded Par Funding, were charged earlier this year with taking part in what Philadelphia prosecutors described as a an "astronomical fraud" which fleeced scores of investors out of $550 million. They are also accused of using threats and actual violence against customers and others who they believed were working with authorities.

Five associates, including Vincent (Vinny Slick) Minsquero, 36, the underling who kept Lanni from setting the Roxy Bar & Grille on fire in Toms River, Robert Brooke, 55, Vito (Vi) Rappa, 46. Francesco (Uncle Ciccio) Vicari, 46, and Salvatore DiLorenzo, 66, were all released on $1 million bonds, except for DiLorenzo, whose bond is $500,000.

Lanni and Minsquero, who had been introduced to the owner of the Roxy by the bartender several hours earlier on September 1, both "became belligerent" when they were kicked out of the restaurant at about 8:15 after they "got into an argument with another patron," according to the government's detention memo.

As they were being escorted out, Vinny Slick "damaged a painting and punched a wall" and Joe Brooklyn "referred to himself" as a "Gambino" and told the owner, the prosecutors wrote, that he would "burn this place down with you in it."

About 18 minutes later, a surveillance video at a gas station right across the street, shows Lanni "purchasing a red gas container, walking to a pump, and trying briefly to fill the container with gas before apparently being dissuaded by Minsquero and a gas station attendant," the prosecutors wrote.

The video also shows Vinny Slick "returning the gas container" to the clerk with the still steaming Joe Brooklyn trying to stop him.

Over the next two days, telephone records show that Lanni called Roxy’s Bar and Grille 39 times. A good portion of one he made about an hour and 15 mintes after he was thrown out, at 9:41 PM on September 1, was astounding, the prosecutors wrote. As a Toms River police officer responded to a call from the restaurant, his "body-worn camera video" picked up the owner telling Lanni, "Stop calling my business."

The cop took the phone from the owner and before he could say anything to him, the prosecutors wrote, Lanni said, "Apologize to me," and then stated, "Beg for my forgiveness. Beg for my forgiveness. Beg for my forgiveness . . . Beg. Beg. Beg for my forgiveness. Beg. Beg. Beg for my forgiveness. Say, 'I'm sorry, Joe.'"

Less than three hours later, when the woman owner finished cleaning up and got into her car to go home, Lanni, who had been hiding behind their car, "entered the vehicle, and stated, 'I'm going to kill you,' and punched (her) on the right side of her head with a closed fist," according to a filing in the state assault case.

When the woman's husband, who was apparently locking up, heard his wife's screams and saw her being attacked, "he ran to the vehicle and was attacked by the defendant and an unknown male" who "threw the victim to the ground and proceeded to strike him" several times, according to the state assault charges.

Sources say the accomplice, who is not charged in the New Jersey case, or named in the Brooklyn case, is Vinny Slick Minsquero, the underling who saved his capo from being charged with arson, or worse, a few minutes after he and Joe Brooklyn were thrown out of Roxy's Bar & Grille in Toms River for being drunk and disorderly.

The New Jersey arrest complaint states that Lanni punched and kicked the husband "multiple times" while he was on his back laying on the ground next to the couple's Jeep Cherokee as his beaten and terrorized wife remained in the front seat of their car.

"As the victim was getting to his feet," the state prosecutor stated, "the defendant took out a knife and punctured the driver's side tires" and "then pointed the knife at the male victim and stated, 'I'm going to get you.'"

Anthony Senter, Murder Machine Gangster Convicted Of Ten Killings, Granted Parole

Luchese mobster Anthony Senter, who has been serving a prison term of life plus 20 years since 1988 for racketeering and 10 gruesome murders committed as a member of a Mafia crew, has been granted parole and will be released from federal prison in the coming months, Gang Land has learned.

Many of the victims killed by Senter's crew were dismembered and disposed of along with household garbage in nearby landfills, a ghastly series of crimes detailed in our 1992 book, Murder Machine.

Senter, 68, whose release date was listed by the federal Bureau of Prisons for many years as October 13, 2032, was granted parole by the moribund U.S. Parole Commission (USPC) which still has jurisdiction for inmates who've been sentenced for crimes committed before 1987, according to a spokesman for the BOP.

The USPC granted Senter parole after he had completed 35 years behind bars, according to his lawyer, Linda Sheffield, an Atlanta-based attorney who specializes in post-conviction appeals for federal inmates and who represented the inmate last year at a "special consideration hearing" he had before the USPC.

"Anthony is not the person he was back then and the Commission recognized that and decided that 420 months in prison was sufficient punishment for him," Sheffield told Gang Land. "He was a model prisoner in every facility he's been at, and he received excellent recommendations from all the BOP supervisors we could find."

The USPC, under Acting Chairman Patricia Cushwa and Commissioner Charles Massarone, has jurisdiction over only 39 of the 158,462 federal prison inmates these days. No one responded to numerous Gang Land telephone and email requests for details about its decision to parole Senter, or the status of Joseph Testa, who was convicted at trial and received the same prison term as Senter, but is still serving a life sentence, according to The BOP database.

Senter is slated to be released from custody on June 22, but all BOP inmates are eligible for placement in a hallway house a year before their release.

Testa, also 68, will likely seek parole soon. He is currently scheduled for mandatory release on parole in 2032 under the protocol for convictions for pre-1987 crimes, unless prosecutors in the case object.

Sheffield doesn't represent Testa. But during her work for Senter has become familiar with the case against Testa, a longtime friend of her client, and whose involvement in the savage crimes of the car thieves and drug dealers in the crew headed by Gambino mobster Roy DeMeo began in the early 1970s, when they were teenagers.

"Anthony and Joey have both done well in prison," said Sheffield. "They were young when this case was made and even younger at the time of the offense behavior. They were not leaders and if they were ever a danger to the community that is absolutely no longer the case. Both of these men have been very fortunate that their wives have stood by them through the trials and incarceration. Their children are all law abiding citizens."

Senter, Testa and Henry Borelli were key members of the DeMeo Crew which was suspected by the FBI of 200 killings of rival car thieves, drug dealers, and others who crossed them in the 1970s and 1980s. Many were killed in an apartment near the Gemini Lounge in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, according to testimony at two Manhattan Federal Court racketeering trials in 1985-86 and 1988-99.

Murders by the DeMeo Crew were a carefully staged operation. Chris Rosenberg, a gangster who would himself later be killed by his own crew, would begin by attacking the victim as he entered the living room. He would be wearing only his underwear so he wouldn't get any blood on his clothes, as detailed in Murder Machine, the book about the DeMeo Crew by Gene Mustain and yours truly.

The undies-clad Rosenberg would jump out and stab the victim in the heart, according to FBI agent Arthur Ruffels. Then DeMeo would glide over and put two bullets in his head using a silencer-equipped pistol. A towel was carefully wrapped around the victim's head to keep the blood from squirting. The bodies would then be placed in a bathtub to let the blood congeal for about 45 minutes.

"Eventually," Ruffels stated in describing what he called "a disassembly line," the body "was placed on a tarpaulin or one of those swimming pool liners they sometimes used" and "Roy and his crew sawed the man apart, put him in garbage bags and took him to the biggest dump in Brooklyn," an infamous landfill in southeastern Brooklyn known as the Fountain Avenue Dump.

Ironically, Borelli, whose two murder convictions were thrown out for technical reasons, and who stands convicted only of 15 car theft counts and has served 38 years behind bars, has little chance of ever winning his release from federal prison. Borelli, 75, was sentenced to 150 years for car thefts and his mandatory release date is still 59 years away, in 2083.

In rejecting Borelli's appeal for an early release, Judge Loretta Preska agreed with his trial judge, Kevin Duffy, who stated that Borelli had been convicted of "being what is generally called a contract killer" and he could not envision "any justification by anyone, including the parole board, to return you to any kind of access to the public."

Judge Vincent Broderick seemed to feel the same way about Senter and Testa. He gave them life plus 20 years, stating that their crimes were "so horrendous and so inhumane and so unbelievable that the only sane course that I could see for sentencing was to make sure that as long as it could be possible you will not be available to commit any more such crimes."

But under the old rules, inmates sentenced to life, which, as the greater prison term, controls, "max out" in 45 years. But inmates with numerical prison terms max out after two thirds of the time behind bars, which in Borelli's case, is 100 years.

The U.S. Attorney's office, which opposed two motions for release by Borelli but did not oppose Senter's request for parole, declined to comment about the case. *

Feds Spring A Perry Mason Moment On Stevie Blue

Things were going well for Bonanno soldier Stephen (Stevie Blue) LoCurto last week. He was on the witness stand, finally getting his long-awaited chance to make the case for himself in his hard-fought battle to undo the life sentence he says he unfairly received for his "smoking gun murder" conviction. LoCurto has long insisted he was duped by own lawyers into going to trial in the sure-loser case instead of taking a 20-year plea deal. Then, in a dramatic Perry Mason-style moment, Stevie Blue's claim took a major hit.

It happened week when prosecutor Andrew Roddin — he looks more like the current Matthew Rhys-Mason than the Raymond Burr-1950s version — asked Stevie Blue about his claim that he had encountered turncoat capo James (Big Louie) Tartaglione in December 2021 at the same Queens hospital where LoCurto's federal jailers had taken him for surgery.

"And it's in December of 2021 that you say you saw James Tartaglione?" Roddin asked.

"I didn't know him," said LoCurto, who had mentioned Big Louie in his direct testimony. "I didn't recognize. When I came back, I looked at some pictures of my discovery and I realized that was him."

"I just want to make sure," Roddin continued. "You're saying in December of 2021, so coming up on two years ago, is when you saw (him,) a person you later learned was James Tartaglione?"

"It looked like him in the picture, a guy I seen in the bed," LoCurto replied. "And then I compared that look to a look that I seen in discovery of him at a younger age. It looked like it could have been him because it is a long, long guy. I say long because he was in a bed."

"Are you certain that was in December of 2021?
"Yeah."

As Roddin held up a document and told the judge that he was going to show it first to defense attorney Bernard Freamon and then to LoCurto, the wiseguy caught on that he'd been suckered. "A death certificate," he blurted out, along with a couple of other remarks. He was quickly admonished by Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara and told to wait for a question before he speaks.

"That's what it looked like to me," Stevie Blue continued. "Who was it? Yeah, I would like to see it. I know I was brought to the front of that room on purpose. Okay. When did he die? All right. Well, maybe I was wrong about the month. But it was 2021. So I'm close."

"Mr. LoCurto," said Bulsara, "there is no question pending. You don't help your case if you keep randomly talking. Okay?"

"Okay, I'm sorry," replied a frazzled, and still talkative Stevie Blue. Finally, he conceded that he was looking at a death certificate which stated that Tartaglione had died in Melbourne Florida on April 4, 2021, eight months before LoCurto had seen him.

"No more questions," said Roddin, in his best Perry Mason-like finish.

Andrew RoddinLoCurto wasn't caught lying about his main claim, namely that he would have taken the 20-year-plea deal for the 1996 murder if an appeals lawyer had told him that he could receive a life sentence if convicted at his 2006 trial. But the feds are sure to argue that his off-the-wall claim that he saw a mob turncoat who had been dead for eight months makes anything he says unworthy of belief.

Attorney Freamon, who told Gang Land yesterday that he is "investigating the matter," will likely argue that even if his client didn't see turncoat capo James (Big Louie) Tartaglione when he said he did, it doesn't undermine his client's contention that if he had gotten the correct legal advice, he would have taken the deal and already served his time for the crime.

But LoCurto was beside himself when he realized he'd been snookered.

If nothing else, the government gambit should put an end to a continuing complaint by LoCurto.

Tartaglioe death certificateIn recent months, Stevie Blue has written several letters asking the judge to get the feds to tell Freamon that he had seen Tartaglione and Bonanno boss Joseph Massino and mobster Frank (Curly) Lino in hospital visits. He wrote that it had become "very difficult" to proceed with Freamon who "keeps accusing me of making things up that I seen."

On the key issue, LoCurto testified that at a jailhouse meeting with his trial attorney Harry Batchelder and Laura Oppenheim, an appeals lawyer Batchelder had hired, Oppenheim told him that he would "probably" get "a life sentence" if found guilty at trial, but assured him: "If you do get the life sentence, I am going to get it overturned for you in the Second Circuit."

Under questioning from Freamon, LoCurto stated that "At that meeting Harry had absolutely no reaction. He deferred to her. He said she was the expert, and they left."

"Did Harry Batchelder ever disavow the advice that Ms. Oppenheim had given you?" Freamon asked.

Bernad Freamon"No," said LoCurto. "Harry Batchelder, as being an experienced attorney should have patiently grabbed me by my shirt, maybe not literally, but tell me Mr. LoCurto, you're going to get a life sentence here, you better take this plea. That's what lawyers are supposed to do."

Batchelder, testifying from a federal building in New Hampshire, where he lives, insisted that at his meeting with Oppenheim and LoCurto, he stated that he "disagreed" with Oppenheim's opinion, and said: "Stephen, it's my advice that if you go to trial and fail at trial, you are going to get life," and would then have the option of claiming he received "ineffective assistance of counsel."

"But I said," Batchelder continued, "My advice, as your attorney, is that if you blow trial, if you do not succeed at trial, you are going to do life in prison.

"And was that in front of Mr. LoCurto that you expressed your opinion of Ms. Oppenheim's advice?" asked co-prosecutor Tanya Hajjar.

"Yes, and Laura Oppenheim was right there," said Batchelder.

Bulsara reserved a decision until both sides submit their final arguments on the issue in 45 days.

[Cheech]

Capeci has a diff pic of vinny slick than we do.

Letting senter out. Why? This is america now? Disgusting

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting.

[Cheech]

CApeci posted the wrong vinny slick. Our vinny slick is 36. Jerry posted some geriatric

[OcSleeper]

Thanks for posting irishguy.

Capeci has a diff pic of vinny slick than we do.

Letting senter out. Why? This is america now? Disgusting

Could you post it?

[Snakes]

Capeci has a diff pic of vinny slick than we do.

Letting senter out. Why? This is america now? Disgusting

This is actually the case of old standards still being employed. If he was convicted after federal parole and sentencing reform, he'd have to serve his entire sentence and would never get out.

[Cheech]

Capeci has a diff pic of vinny slick than we do.

Letting senter out. Why? This is america now? Disgusting

This is actually the case of old standards still being employed. If he was convicted after federal parole and sentencing reform, he'd have to serve his entire sentence and would never get out.

Makes sense. Thanks snakes

[Tonyd621]

In fhe first article, is Capeci implying that they are looking at some possible murders regarding this indictment?

[Strax]

In fhe first article, is Capeci implying that they are looking at some possible murders regarding this indictment?

They are looking for bodies, but i don't know if they are linked to this indictment or it is older cases.

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for posting.

Senter should or will most likely go into retirement

[funkster]

Not so sure about that, should is right though.

Thanks for posting.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for posting Irish.

Senter has ten bodies and the parole board lets him out.

What's the number they say no? 11?

34? 33's fine but 34 you're a serial?

[outfit guy]

In fhe first article, is Capeci implying that they are looking at some possible murders regarding this indictment?

They are looking for bodies, but i don't know if they are linked to this indictment or it is older cases.

I immediately suspected the associate with the same surname. Or, it could be someone else and the FBI using this arrest as cover.

[Browniety86]

Thanks for posting.

Senter should or will most likely go into retirement

Isn't Senter made into the Luccheses?

[Ivan]

I emailed Capeci right after you guys posted that Senter was getting out, so he might have first heard about this from us, via me.

Have to say all this Gambino case news is a nice change of pace from all the "Cicale said that Merlino is a stupidhead but Franzese said nuh uh" gayness.