Gangland 11-30-2023

[Dr031718]

Skinny Teddy Hopes That Info From An FBI Canary Helps Him When He Faces The Music

The Colombo family hierarchy isn't happy that a renowned tenor who was a featured soloist at churches across the country, including St. Patrick's Cathedral, fingered them in a 20-year-long extortion scheme. But capo Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico hopes that Koslosky's cooperation is a boon for him when he faces the music for racketeering next month, Gang Land has learned.

That's because it was singer Andrew Koslosky, who was intimately involved in the family's shakedown of a Queens-based construction workers union, who corrected bogus FBI info that Persico was boss of the crime family. And it was Koslosky who also alerted prosecutors that Skinny Teddy was not a supervisor or manager "in the extortion scheme," according to a sentencing memo filed by Persico's attorney.

Not that Skinny Teddy had nothing to do with the scheme. Persico pleaded guilty to being part of the shakedown of Local 621 of the United Construction Trades and Industrial Employees Union. He is also considered by the feds to be the "heir apparent" boss to his late uncle, Carmine (Junior) Persico. But his attorney is seeking a prison term of less than 51 months behind bars, the low end of the sentencing guidelines for his crime.

"Persico did not exercise control and authority over the participants in the extortion conspiracy or the money laundering conspiracy," lawyer Joseph Corozzo stated in his filing with Brooklyn Federal Judge Hector Gonzalez. "The extortion conspiracy began long before Mr. Persico became aware of it and joined it after his release from prison in the Spring of 2020," he wrote.

The "harshness" of his jailing since September of 2021 at the Metropolitan Detention Center, which a judge recently called an "ongoing disgrace," Corrzzo wrote, also "weighs in favor of a below-Guidelines sentence." Especially since Persico "has been taking classes" to better himself while not receiving the "proper medical attention" he's needed for his ailments, the lawyer wrote.

Corozzo also asked the judge to consider Persico's tough personal situation. His partner and fiancé, Nicole Russo, along with her mother, are both ailing and dependent on Skinny Teddy. So is his mother who is in her 80s and lives with Russo in Brooklyn. Those factors should also weigh heavily in favor of leniency, Corrozo wrote. He attached a letter from Russo stating, "He loves hard, works hard and sacrifices for everyone else, and I need him. The past 25 months have been unbearable without him home."

In his plea agreement, the 60-year-old Persico, who has spent most of his adult life behind bars and was on supervised release from a 12-year prison term for racketeering when he was arrested, agreed that a sentence up to 105 months behind bars would not be excessive.

To back up his argument that Skinny Teddy had only a "passive" role in the union extortion, and deserves less than half that time in prison, Corozzo cited taped talks about Persico that the architect of the extortion scheme, capo Vincent (Vinny Unions) Ricciardo, and his underling and close pal, Michael Uvino, had with Koslosky between April and September of 2021.

In a discussion on April 13, 2021, which sources say was several days after FBI agents arrested Koslosky for trafficking in guns and ammunition, Ricciardo "affirmatively represented that Mr. Persico was not issuing any orders in the extortion scheme" when the wired-up snitch "attempted to elicit incriminating information" linking Persico to the union shakedown, Corozzo wrote.

Vinny Unions stated that "Brooklyn," a reference to family leaders who were meeting in the Gravesend section and coordinating a plan to steal $10,000 a month from Local 621's health fund in addition to the monthly $2600 payoff that Ricciardo was getting from the union president, were calling the shots, and not "Teddy in Staten Island," Corozzo wrote.

Koslosky, 65, pleaded guilty to a five count racketeering information on August 19, 2021 that is still sealed. But during the violation of supervised release hearing of Bonanno boss Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso early this year, Koslosky was publicly identified as a cooperating witness in the Colombo case who had taped talks with Uvino and Vinny Unions.

Despite Koslosky's "best efforts to try to record incriminating evidence against Mr. Persico between April 2021 and September of 2021, the conversations that were recorded by (him) indicate that those in control of the extortion scheme — 'in Brooklyn' — were distinguished from Mr. Persico — 'Teddy in Staten Island' — who did not yet have any authority," Corozzo wrote.

The reason, according to tape-recorded discussions among "the participants," Corozzo wrote, was that Skinny Teddy was not the family's boss or even a member of its Administration. He was "on paper," a euphemism for "on supervised release" and keeping his distance from the extortion scheme in an unsuccessful effort to avoid a charge of violating it, the lawyer wrote.

The specifics are blacked out in Corozzo's publicly filed memo as so-called "protected" material that only the government can release, but the lawyer cited taped talks on April 13, June 9, June 21, and July 20, in which participants, including Vinny Unions and Uvino stated they were waiting for Skinny Teddy to be "off paper" so he could weigh in on the scheme.

In July, Persico's role in the union extortion "remained passive," Corozzo wrote, and he "was informed" of decisions that the family made about the scheme while others were "chastised" for visiting Persico as the body shop where he worked in Staten Island because he was still "on paper."

Corozzo cited a July 20, 2021 taped talk that prosecutors had filed in their detention memo between Koslosky and Uvino, who was an alleged supervisor in the shakedown scheme, as corroboration that Skinny Teddy had little involvement in the extortion.

"No problem," Uvino told Koslosky. "He says, 'Do whatever youse have to do.' He don't care about nothing, he just wants to go out . . . have a good time, the guy spent 30 fucking years in jail already. . . he's just about, you know what, do the right thing with me, ah, and I'm good with it, you know, he's not selfish."

In the same talk between the duo, Corozzo wrote, Uvino indicated that while he was looking forward to Persico taking over the reins of the crime family, and getting involved in the extortion caper, Skinny Teddy wasn't part of it then.
Koslosky: "What protection do we have if the other guy (Persico) takes over?"
Uvino: "Listen, if he takes, it's smooth sailing."

"In fact," Corozzo wrote, "Persico avoided taking either supervisory responsibility over any of the participants or an active role in the conspiracies because he was still on supervised release" and "did not want" to be charged with a "violation of his supervised release." Skinny Teddy was unsuccessful in that goal, but his VOSR will be dropped when he is sentenced by Gonzalez.

The lawyer insisted that Persico does not "minimize the seriousness" of his crime or "disclaim responsibility for his involvement" in it. He also "fully acknowledges that racketeering is a serious offense" and knows that "joining extortion and money laundering conspiracies" was "wrong and requires just punishment."

"We emphasize," Corozzo wrote, that Persico "did not give directives to any participants in this offense" and contest the allegations by Probation Department officials that Skinny Teddy was a member of the Colombo family Administration and a "manager and "supervisor" of the extortion scheme in the Pre-Sentence Report they filed with the Court.

In seeking an "aggravated role enhancement" for sentencing, Corozzo wrote, the PSR wrongly states that Persico "was present at some major roundtable meetings throughout the course of the instant offense (and) directed other senior administrators in the Colombo crime family (and) had oversight and control over the activities of other criminally culpable participants, some of whom acted on his orders."

In fact, the lawyer wrote, "Probation is wrong about all of the above."

Corozzo noted that back in March, after he stated in a bail motion that the feds could not prove that "Persico gave any orders to anyone in the enterprise," prosecutors failed to "proffer a single order that Mr. Persico is alleged to have given to any participants" in their "single-spaced, seven page" reply, because they had none.

The lawyer called the erroneous allegations in the PSR "a form of confirmation bias" by law enforcement officials who were "predisposed to interpret new information in a way that fits preexisting beliefs." In this case, he wrote, it was the "since abandoned" misinformation by the FBI that his client, not Andrew (Mush) Russo, was the boss of the crime family.

Persico had "no more ability to delegate tasks to a higher ranked member of the enterprise" than an assistant U.S. Attorney could "delegate tasks to U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, or than a law firm associate could delegate work to a law firm partner," Corozzo wrote. "That is just not how hierarchies work."

The need to avoid sentencing disparities also weighed heavily for a prison term below 51 months, the lawyer wrote, noting that Ricciardo's cousin, mob associate Domenick Ricciardo, who "was actively involved in the extortion conspiracy" got 28 months, and Uvino, who had a major role in the scheme, received 41 months.

Given his long "criminal record," the government and the Court might be "skeptical" about his client's intentions, "but Mr. Persico does want to turn over a new leaf," the lawyer wrote.

He submitted several letters to Gonzalez seeking compassion and leniency for Persico, including one from Susan Giordano, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice grad who was the longtime life partner of his brother Danny, who died of cancer in 2016. "Teddy is rehabilitated," she wrote.

Giordano, 64, who went into business with her parents, wrote that she "has a clear understanding of the crime of labor racketeering and its ramifications on society. This time," when Teddy gets out of prison, she wrote, "he will get it right. He has a lot of sadness that he couldn't help his dying brother and father since he was incarcerated at that time. He doesn't want that to ever happen again with any other loved ones. He just wants to work and take care of his family."

The Genovese and Luchese Families Make The Big Time — Books By Andy

You will have to wait a year to see Robert DeNiro as Vito Genovese and as Frank Costello in Alto Knights, the movie written by Nick Pileggi about the wiseguy legends. But you can whet your appetite and read everything you need to know about the duo in The Genovese Family, the book about the most powerful of the Five Families by our mob historian emeritus, Andy Petepiece.

That's just one of two new volumes the intrepid mob researcher has published. Andy also dug deeply into another key mob clan in his book, The Lucchese Family, about the crime family that has been headed by Vittorio (Vic) Amuso since the late 1980s and whose first known boss, Gaetano (Tommy) Reina is believed to have been affiliated with or a member of what we now call the Genovese family, when it was headed by Giuseppe (Joe The Clutch Hand) Morello.

About the famous shooting of Costello in front of his apartment building on Central Park West on March 2, 1957, Petepiece writes that after a beefy gunman named Vincent (Chin) Gigante said, "This is for you, Frank," and "pegged a shot" that "went through the side brim of Costello's fedora and glanced off the side of his head," the bleeding but not terribly wounded wiseguy took a taxi cab to Roosevelt Hospital.

"In typical Costello fashion," Petepiece wrote, "he paid the 45 cents cab fare with a $5 bill and told the cabbie to keep the change."

The so-called Prime Minster of Organized Crime, Petepiece writes, was a "successful Mafioso" who made truck loads of money in bootlegging and gambling. Along the way, the writer tells us, Costello survived "many legal problems," as well as "political scandals, tax problems and contempt charges, and worse, a challenge from the ambitious Vito Genovese." Yet he also knew when to step aside and "lived to die in his bed" in 1971 at the age of 90.

The Mafia career of Genovese, Costello's successor, the author writes, was a "colorful hard luck life." In 1936, after Lucky Luciano was convicted and later deported to Italy, "it seemed like the Boss position" was Genovese's for the asking. But instead, "he had to flee to Italy to avoid a murder investigation." When that charge was dropped, and Vito wrested control of the family from Costello, he wrote, "Genovese had just a short time" as boss before the "feds nailed him" on drug charges and he died in prison in 1969 at the age 71.

Aside from his drug dealing, Genovese's "only real legacy," Petepiece writes, "was having his criminal organization named after him more than 50 years after his passing."

This big book — it's 459 pages — has a chapter on each Genovese boss from Joe The Clutch Hand Morello to Liborio (Barney) Bellomo. It also has chapters about a few other well-known wiseguys, including Matthew (Matty The Horse) Ianniello and Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano.

In the Lucchese Family (Andy is a pretty good researcher but he insists on spelling Luchese with two Cs for reasons that make no sense to Gang Land, the FBI, and New York's two U.S. Attorney's Offices) the author writes that Reina made a small fortune in the lucrative and very competitive ice business until he was shot and killed in 1930, at the age of 41.

Before his death, Reina had made more than $1 million selling ice helping to supply some 4 million tons of it a year consumed by New Yorkers back then, according to a 1925 study cited by Petepiece in his book. "Reina had enough money," Andy wrote, "for a 16 room house, three automobiles, a wife's and nine kids' expenses, not to mention a mistress," Maria Ellis, who was with him when he was killed on February 26, 1930.

An hour after Reina was gunned down, Petepiece tells us, Mrs. Angelina Reina spotted Ellis at the Bathgate Avenue precinct. She "charged like a tigress with venom in her heart," according to New York Daily News reporter Stanford Jarrel, who quoted Mrs. Reina as saying: "You were not satisfied with one man. You had to take mine away from me and my children."

The Luchese epic is somewhat slimmer. It comes in at 268 pages. It includes two chapters on Amuso, one about his predecessor boss Anthony (Tony Ducks) Corallo, as well as chapters on capos Paul Vario and John (Johnny Dio) Dioguardi. One profiles the notorious boxing czar, Frankie Carbo, and another, a mobster who was also active in boxing rackets, capo Ettore (Eddie) Coco.

Andy also lifted, with credit to ABC News, a funny story about a car accident more than 65 years ago on the main drag of Long Beach, NY, where Gang Land currently hangs his hat. That involved several former denizens of Long Beach, namely Luchese mobster and convicted drug dealer Big John Ormento and — of all people — actor and comedian Billy Crystal.

The Billy Crystal takeout is adapted from Crystal's book, 700 Sundays, which was based on the comedian's one-man play, in which he estimated that he had spent about 700 Sundays with his father, who died when Crystal was 15.

Petepiece offers cautions in his introduction to both books. "I am not a great writer, and my editing skills are less than perfect,” he writes. “So if these things bother you, please do not buy this book. But on the other hand, if you are looking for thousands of details on the (Genovese-Lucchese) family, you are in the right place."

Restaurateur Sez Octogenarian Wiseguy Assaulted Him To Collect 86K Gambling Debt

More than six years after he withdrew a police report charging Genovese wiseguy Anthony (Rom) Romanello with assaulting him at his Upper West Side eatery, restaurateur Bruno Selimaj fingered him in court yesterday as the gangster who punched him in the face while trying to collect an $86,000 gambling debt that his relatives owed a Queens bookmaker.

It happened, Selimaj testified, on Romanello’s third visit in the spring of 2017 to the now shuttered Lincoln Square Steakhouse. Rom, who was always accompanied by others on his visits, pressed Selimaj to make good on the money that Selimaj’s nephew Toni and his brother-in-law had lost to Luan (Lou) Bexheti, a runner for a major Queens bookmaker, Michael Regan.

Romanello grew angry, Selimaj testified, when he told Rom that he might pay the $6000 that his nephew, who worked for him, owed Regan, but wasn't going to pay the $80,000 that Eddie lost.

As they stood talking a short distance from the restaurant's bar, Rom blew up, and said, "I would like to punch you, I would like to punch you."

"'You have no guts to punch me,' I tell him," Selimaj continued. "A few seconds later, he punched me," he testified.

On the video that was played for the jury, Rom lands a right hand jab that turns Selimaj's head. At the same moment, codefendant Joseph Celso, who had accompanied Romanello to the restaurant, walks quickly toward Selimaj, who is backpedaling away from Rom, who is moving forward. Seconds later, Romanello and company walk out of the bar, and leave the restaurant.

Romanello about to punch SelimajAccording to Selimaj, the group spotted the security cameras, and Rom said, "Let's get out of here."

During his opening remarks to the eight-man, four-woman panel, and during his questioning of Selimaj, defense attorney Gerald McMahon painted the restaurateur as the villain in the video, the instigator who had induced Rom to lash out by questioning his manhood.

"Bruno told him he was a washed-up Italian, that he had no balls, that he was nothing,” he told the jurors. "He didn't punch him to collect a gambling debt. He punched him," McMahon said, "because Bruno insulted him to his face.”

The lawyer didn't pull any punches during his cross-examination. "Didn't you call and leave a voice mail message for Rom that night and say, 'Come over here, you have no balls, you mother fucker,' and 'This is Bruno. Why don't you suck my dick? Come and suck my dick you piece of shit,'" the lawyer asked.

Selimaj replied that couldn't remember leaving those messages on the night of May 11, 2017, the same night he filed a police report accusing Rom of assault.

Under questioning by prosecutor Dana Rehnquist, Selimaj said that Rom and other "Mafia people" would regularly dine privately in an upstairs piano room at his Upper East Side restaurant, Club A Steakhouse on East 58th Street, which Gang Land has incorrectly stated was where Romanello served up a knuckle sandwich to Selimaj in prior articles about the case.

He testified that he began to fear for the safety of his nephew two months earlier when Regan, who would be charged in 2019 with illegal gambling in Queens, stopped at Lincoln Square to tell him about his nephew's gambling debt and told him, "Tough Tony said to say hello."

The reference to the late Anthony Federici, Rom's Genovese crime family superior, unsettled Selimaj. "I interpreted that he was going to use muscles against me," he said.

He filed a police report about the May 11 assault, but the next day, he testified, his brother Nino, who followed Bruno to the stand yesterday and resumes his testimony today, convinced him to withdraw the complaint.

Selimaj's brother Nino, who owns Nino's Restaurant on First Avenue in Manhattan, paid off the $80,000 gambling debt that Toni's brother-in-law Eddie owed Bexheti-Regan to Celso several days after his brother Bruno was assaulted, according to court filings in the case.

During a pre-trial hearing, prosecutor Irisa Chen stated that Nino Selimaj decided to pay off the gambling debt that his nephew Tony and brother-in-law Eddie owed to Bexheti shortly after Romanello assaulted Bruno Selimaj at his restaurant, and reached out to Celso to handle it.

Prosecutors allege that's when Celso threatened Bruno to withdraw the complaint by telling Nino, who had placed wagers with Celso for years, that the situation would escalate if Bruno didn't withdraw the police report against Rom.

Romanello, 86, and Celso, 51, are charged with using extortionate means to collect an illegal gambling debt. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison.

[Dr031718]

[Cheech]

Ask Andy and his books is the dumbest think JC does

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting.

[johnny_scootch]

Andy has a chapter on Frankie Carbo in the wrong book. Well done!

[TommyGambino]

Will the 2 years count towards time served for Persico?

[outfit guy]

Will the 2 years count towards time served for Persico?

I don't believe so as the reporting cited VOSP will cease upon sentencing; meaning, he is serving VOSP time (parole violation).

[Cheech]

Andy has a chapter on Frankie Carbo in the wrong book. Well done!

Its all retarded. Never liked it

[Sullycantwell]

Anyone know if Petepeice tries claiming Philip Lombardo was boss from 1969-1981 in his book?

[dack2001]

I will bet that will be an argument at sentencing, that the VOSP will be consecutive or concurrent to the new sentence. I'd guess that he will make it concurrent and give Teddy another 3 years of supervised release.

[JohnnyS]

Here's the video of the punch. https://nypost.com/2023/11/30/metro/vid ... tion-plot/

[TommyGambino]

Here's the video of the punch. https://nypost.com/2023/11/30/metro/vid ... tion-plot/

Decent handspeed considering he's ancient haha

[Blunts]

'You have no guts to punch me,' I tell him," Selimaj continued. "A few seconds later, he punched me," he testified. This fucken guy all surprised he got clocked. This case is a joke. Hope the old man walks.

[Tonyd621]

Andy has a chapter on Frankie Carbo in the wrong book. Well done!

[Tonyd621]

Idk what Romanello has does in the past. But, this particular case, I hope he walks. The witness is being coached what to say it seems.