Gangland:3/3/16

[Dellacroce]

Disgraced, Disbarred Mob Lawyer Gets His Law License Back

Until he was disbarred eight years ago in the wake of the government's purge of Joseph Massino and his beleaguered Bonanno crime family, attorney Larry Bronson was a real life version of Saul Goldman — the quintessential sleazy lawyer on AMC-TV's long-running, critically acclaimed show, Breaking Bad.

But just like Saul Goldman, whose spinoff show, Better Call Saul, is now in its second season, Bronson, 70, just keeps on trucking. Just last week, he was reinstated as an attorney in good standing in Brooklyn Federal Court, where he was convicted in 2008 and given 16 months behind bars. At sentencing, prosecutors filed 22 unchallenged allegations of "unethical and illegal" actions that Bronson had engaged in as a mob lawyer — including the theft of a client's apartment.

Like his initial federal court suspension, his re-instatement was a pro forma ruling based on the status of Bronson's license to practice law in New Jersey. That's where Bronson was admitted as an attorney in 1970, and where his license was suspended in 2008. The suspension came after he copped a sweet plea deal calling for a maximum of 16 months to cover racketeering, laundering proceeds from drug deals, obstruction of justice and other charges rather than take his chances at trial.

Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan, the Chairman of the Court's Attorney Disciplinary Committee, ordered that Bronson be "restored to the Roll of Attorneys" last Friday. The move came a few days after Bronson submitted a "Certificate of Good Standing" from the State Supreme Court in Trenton. In order to practice law in federal court, an attorney must submit proof of Good Standing in that state, or a nearby state, to the clerk's office, and pay a fee ($196 in Brooklyn.)

The Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office, which spent more than six years investigating and prosecuting the cagy mob lawyer for crimes in three states involving the Bonanno and Gambino crime families, had no input in the matter. In theory, it could have filed an objection to Bronson's petition. But it didn't, most likely because it had no idea about Bronson's successful petition until this week, when Gang Land asked for a reaction to Cogan's ruling.

The U.S. Attorney's Office could petition Cogan to reverse his decision, but a spokeswoman declined all comment about the matter.

Bronson, who filed his petition for reinstatement with the New Jersey Supreme Court in August, had no issues with the law while he was serving his prison term, or during the three years he was under strict post prison supervised release from May of 2010 until May of 2013.

But a few months later the old Larry Bronson emerged, according to court records.

In July of 2013, he was arrested at his East 68th Street home on menacing and weapons possession charges for allegedly threatening to assault a woman who lived in his building with a baton after she rejected his amorous advances on numerous occasions, according to an arrest complaint.

The final straw for his neighbor came on July 10 when Bronson approached the woman "with a baton in his hand" in the lobby of their building, "slammed the baton on a table," and told her: "I will crack your head open," according to the complaint.

Following his arraignment, Bronson was released on his own recognizance. The charges were ultimately dismissed the following year and remain sealed. According to Bronson's petition for readmission to the bar, he was forced to undergo a "day of anger management" therapy for what he stated was the result of a "complaint by my former girlfriend."

The 2013 episode was an echo of his prior troubles. In 2004, Bronson was arrested twice on coercion and harassment charges for allegedly stalking a woman client and threatening to sabotage her federal extortion case for refusing to have sex with him. Bronson was ousted as the woman's lawyer. All the charges stemming from his dealings with the woman were dropped in 2005 when Bronson, who denied the allegations, steered clear of the woman, a Russian émigré, for six months.

In his petition for re-instatement, Bronson, whose wife died in 2011, wrote that he has been unemployed since 2014, is in debt for more than $200,000, and is living on social security and "financial support from my family." He stated that he intends to open an office in Hudson County, New Jersey, where he served as a prosecutor in the 1970s, in "the general practice of law, emphasizing State and Federal litigation."

Bronson stated that all his "client files, financial records, check books, accounting records, personal property, bills, invoices and telephone logs" relating to his prior law practice were destroyed by his former landlord "with no notices of any kind" a month after he was arrested on September 28, 2005.

The New Jersey Supreme Court approved Bronson's re-instatement in October, after he submitted his tax returns, and paid $6561 in court costs.

Contacted by Gang Land, Bronson said he had also been re-instated as an attorney in good standing by the New Jersey Federal Courts and that he planned to seek re-instatement in the coming months in Manhattan Federal Court, but had not yet decided exactly where to put out his shingle.

Now that he is in Good Standing in New Jersey, he said, his admission to handle cases in all the federal courts in the tristate area "is automatic. You just have to make an application."

But he's not going to rush things.

"I'm going very slowly," said Bronson. "Any moves that I make and any lease commitments that I make, I want to do carefully. Things have been bad, but I've been able to make a living without practicing law. When you do things a second and third time, you're usually older and wiser. I'm wiser too, I hope," he laughed.

Bronson denied the laundry list of allegations that prosecutors cited at his sentencing, including the charge that he "acquired a key to the apartment of a jailed client, took the client's possessions, including a large amount of cash, without the client's permission, and then rented the apartment, again without the client's permission."

He also denied the allegation by several mob turncoats, including former Bonanno underboss Salvatore Vitale, that Bronson often boasted that he had a close personal relationship with former FBI Director Louis Freeh and could use that to thwart prosecutions in order to solicit clients.

A specific Vitale allegation, that "Bronson promised to get (him) the deal of the century because he knew the head of the FBI," was "an outright lie," said Bronson. "That's nonsense," he said. "That's a good way to end up in a funeral home. You tell that to a wiseguy, and you take a fee from him, and he gets 10 years, what do you think will happen to you?"

Donald Trump's Ties To Fat Tony And Roy Cohn

Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno would have gotten a big kick out of hearing his name tossed around in the current anything-goes Republican presidential primary. Texas senator Ted Cruz suggested this week that one reason GOP front runner Donald Trump has balked at releasing his tax returns is that they might reveal a "bombshell" concerning his past dealings with Salerno, the former acting boss of the Genovese crime family.

Fat Tony, the cigar-chomping mobster who oversaw his domain from a sidewalk chair outside his East Harlem social club, would have gotten an even bigger kick out of Cruz's wide-eyed revelation to NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press that Salerno "is a mobster who is in jail."

Okay, getting the facts straight hasn't been the strong point of any of the contenders in this year's primary brawl. But Gang Land thinks Cruz's opposition-research diggers should at least have dug deep enough to confirm that poor Fat Tony has been dead almost a quarter of a century: He expired in 1992 at the age of 80 at the federal prison medical facility in Springfield, Missouri where he was serving racketeering sentences of 100 years and 70 years.

But if Cruz and the other Republicans desperately trying to stop the Trump bandwagon want to keep digging, there are a few more choice items concerning the commander of Hair Force One and New York wiseguys that might make nice sound bites on the campaign trail and the talk shows.

For starters, we have yet to hear any would-be Trump basher cite the late New York powerbroker Roy Cohn who was not only Fat Tony's highly-valued mouthpiece but was also thisclose to The Donald back in the day. Cohn, who served as chief counsel to the witch-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy, later became a top mob lawyer. And he was probably more instrumental in Trump's rise on the New York scene than any other figure. As related in investigative reporter Wayne Barrett's authoritative 1992 biography, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, Cohn bragged that Trump called him "fifteen to twenty times a day, always asking what's the status of this, what's the status of that?"

At the same time Cohn was whispering in Trump's ear, his other clients included a slew of mobsters, including Salerno. In his book, Barrett quotes an unnamed former Cohn aide who described a private meeting between Salerno and Trump inside the East Side townhouse where Cohn had his law office. Whether or not they met, the two had some clear business overlaps: When Trump built a luxury residential tower on Third Avenue that he dubbed Trump Plaza, he gave the biggest and most lucrative construction contract to S&A Concrete, the company Salerno controlled jointly with Gambino family boss Paul (Big Paul) Castellano.

Cohn's role as a crucial Mafia go-between was depicted in detail by mob defector Vincent (Fish) Cafaro, a Genovese turncoat. Cafaro, who flipped in 1987, told the FBI how he had been repeatedly dispatched up to Cohn's townhouse on mob errands by both Fat Tony and the real Genovese boss, Vincent (Chin) Gigante.

One such errand came in 1984, just as Cohn was assisting Trump in his rise to fame and fortune with his Manhattan real estate deals. Cafaro said the order was relayed to him by top Gigante aide, Dominic (Quiet Dom) Cirillo, who said The Chin wanted Cohn to figure out a way to obtain a reduction in the prison sentence for his brother Mario Gigante who had been hit with an eight-year bid for loansharking.

Cafaro said Cohn told him it could be done, but it would cost "big bucks." A three-year reduction would cost $250,000, Cohn told the messenger; a two year reduction would be $175,000. As soon as he got the money, Cohn told Cafaro, he'd file a Rule 35 motion seeking the sentence reduction. It was a money-back deal, Cohn told him: If no cut in the sentence resulted, "the Chin would not have to pay a cent."

Cafaro said he went straight from the townhouse to the Sullivan Street club in Greenwich Village where Chin was waiting. There, Gigante considered Cohn's offer and opted for the cheaper, two-year deal. Cafaro went back up to Cohn who told him, "I will take it from here."

There were two or three more missions by Cafaro to the townhouse to discuss the effort with Cohn telling him that as soon as the deal was done, he should bring up the money. If Cohn wasn't around, the lawyer told him, he should give it to his law partner, Conservative party leader Thomas Bolan.

Cohn filed his motion in September 1984, arguing that Gigante suffered from "serious heart problems" and ran the risk of dying in jail. Federal prosecutors opposed the move, but a few months later, federal judge Charles Stewart, who had imposed the original sentence, cut Mario Gigante's prison term by two years without explanation.

Cafaro was again the courier, delivering the payoff in cash installments. The first two, for $75,000 and $50,000, Cafaro said he put the money directly in Cohn's hands. When he went to deliver the final $50,000 Cohn was absent but Bolan, Cafaro told the feds, handled it. "I know what this is for," Bolan told him as he took the envelope. Two weeks later, Cafaro saw Cohn and told him: "We are all even." Cohn responded: "I know, Tom Bolan told me."

Cohn was already gone by the time Cafaro told the feds about the Genovese bribe deal. A deeply closeted gay, he died of AIDS in 1986. But in his last years, the lawyer worked just as hard for Trump as the Genovese crime family, helping line up City Hall backing for zoning easements and threatening lawsuits against Trump antagonists. "He's a lousy lawyer, but a genius," Trump said of Cohn.

Mob Associate Gets 10 Months To Remember The Handgun He Forgot

John Fazio had forgotten all about the .38 caliber semi-automatic that was in his home when DEA agents came looking for drugs last year. The search turned up no drugs, so the mob associate didn't deserve to go to prison for gun possession, his lawyer argued at his sentencing last month. But Brooklyn Federal Judge Dora Irizarry reminded Fazio of some taped talks he had about drug dealing and gave him 10 months in prison to remember the entire episode.

All things considered, though, Fazio didn't fare too badly. He certainly made out a whole lot better than Giovanni (John) Cerbone, a reputed Colombo family wiseguy who was snared by the same informer. Cerbone, 44, unlike Fazio, did more than talk about drugs. He actually sold the informer cocaine, marijuana, oxycodone and amphetamine last year and was sentenced last year to 70 months behind bars.

In a plea for a no-jail sentence for Fazio, attorney Gerald McMahon argued that his client had "legally purchased" the handgun more than 25 years ago. He had "legally transferred ownership of the gun to his father" in the 1990s after Fazio was convicted of securities fraud and was prohibited from owning a firearm. At the time, the elder Fazio was living in Florida.

But in 2012, when Fazio's elderly and ailing parents moved back to New York, Fazio took the gun back to his home and "basically forgot about it" until the DEA agents knocked on his door with a search warrant last year, wrote McMahon.

That didn't cut much ice with Judge Irizarry. She reminded Fazio that he boasted of making "a ton of cash" dealing drugs that he was having difficulty figuring out ways to spend it without getting busted for tax evasion.

In one memorable snippet, after the informer asked him for help laundering some profits from his drug business, Fazio replied that he had enough problems of his own to deal with.

"I'm in the same boat as you," said Fazio, saying he bought a Corvette for "111 thousand" and had a hell of a time figuring out how to "pay for this fucking thing," according to the complaint. The document also revealed that a DEA investigation showed that Fazio "used $4000 in U.S. currency and a cashier's check for $6000," to buy the car, which cost $111,135, including taxes.

Fazio, 54, will have a little less cash to worry about when he begins serving his sentence on April 22. In addition to his handgun, he agreed to forfeit $40,000.

[TommyGambino]

Capeci needs to up his game, another boring article.

[bronx]

larry is his lead story? who cares about that rat.

[Cheech]

waste of time

[Rocco]

I concur... Every now and then he writes a gem though. So thanks for posting these weekly Dell !

[Pogo The Clown]

Thanks for posting this weeks column Dellacroce.


Pogo

[DPG]

Lol i still enjoy having something to read thanks for posting

[NYNighthawk]

Bronx- what did he do that you called him a rat? I never heard of anyone he turned on - please explain in detail

[Doobeez]

Thanks for posting this weeks column Dellacroce.


Pogo

I liked the Trump/Cohn/Genovese blurb.


Hair Force One, Pogo...

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for posting Dell.

Fucking lawyers.

Jerry: no one gives a fuck about lawyers. We're interested in LCN not crooked Jewish HIV ridden sleaze bag shifty lawyers.

[B.]

Honestly at this point I'd rather have Capeci go over random info from the past that he may have glossed over at the time due to the wealth of info he had back then. With all of the crazy events of the 90s, I am sure there were things that came across his table that were less interesting by yesterday's standards that today would be much more interesting than whatever he's reporting on.

I'm not saying he has to disclude the type of stuff from this week, but he could easily cut it down. I think most of his target audience at this point is just as interested in events of the past as they are what's going on today.

[Cheech]

Agree b. Check your pm

[Cheech]

Again no talk of Bonanno trial even the mamas boy dude from the Bronx testified. I don't get it.

[Garbageman]

Tough to report on something that's so over with

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[Wiseguy]

Tough to report on something that's so over with

You don't really believe that, do you?