Gangland April 11th 2024

[Dr031718]

Steve Crea Has Terminal Lung Cancer, But Not To Worry Say Feds: He Can Sleep and Move

Luchese underboss Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea must be some kind of tough guy. Even though he has Stage IV lung cancer, and not likely to live another year, the feds say Crea is still a danger to the community and should not be released on bail pending the appeal of his conviction for the murder of former Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish.

The proof? "Despite Crea's cancer diagnosis, he is still able to perform daily living functions, including sleeping and moving," wrote federal prosecutor Alexandra Rothman.

Sleeping: Until now, this was not known to be an indicator of a threat to society. Presumably it is listed somewhere in Federal Code of Criminal Procedure. As for "Moving," the feds don't indicate exactly how much Crea is capable of, but if he can make it to the bathroom this must present a clear and present danger.

And then, most perilously, there is the threat of the ailing mobster's still active mind. "Crea remains mentally competent," said Rothman. "That matters because Crea poses a danger to the community not based on what he might personally do, but what he might order others to do."

"After all," Rothman continued, "the acts of violence alleged against him in this case arise not from any action Crea took personally, but from violence he ordered others to commit at his behest," including the 2013 gangland-style slaying of Meldish, for which the 76-year-old wiseguy received a mandatory life sentence in 2020.

In seeking bail pending appeal, Crea's lawyers had likened their client's plight to that of Luchese soldier Joseph (Joey Glasses) Datello, a codefendant who was suffering debilitating ailments and was granted a compassionate release last year from a 14-year sentence for the attempted murder of an informer by the same judge, White Plains Federal Judge Cathy Seibel, after the government recommended compassion for the mobster.

Unlike Stevie Wonder, Rothman wrote, "Datello's mental acuity had precipitously and irreversibly declined since he was sentenced" and he was "almost entirely immobile and unable to speak." The government recommended a compassionate release because Joey Glasses "no longer posed any conceivable danger," she wrote.

Of course, the government did not take into account the possibility that Joey Glasses could still order retribution for a wayward associate by blinking his eyes, once for "Beating," twice for "Kill."

The fact that Crea is a terminally ill old man "does nothing to undermine" the prior findings by Judge Seibel back in 2017 when the judge agreed with prosecutors that Stevie Wonder was a dangerous felon and ordered him detained without bail before his trial, Rothman wrote.

"At his sentencing," the prosecutor noted, Seibel again stated "that Crea was dangerous, unlikely to be deterred" from committing crimes in the future, and was a "lifetime Mafia leader."

Rothman skipped the tricky issues raised by attorneys Anthony DiPietro and Brendan White who said one reason Crea should be granted bail is because the prison hospital where Crea was transferred in February is unable to administer the cancer drugs that its doctors have prescribed because he "has dental implants" that "cause complications" with the cancer drugs he needs.

The hospital "does not have the appropriate tools" that are needed to remove the implants, the lawyers wrote, and Crea's release on bail would allow him "to visit an outside specialist who could perform the necessary dental work" that has to be performed in order for him to receive the prescribed drugs he needs.

Rothman argued that the decision by the defense lawyers to seek bail pending appeal from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals was "a strategic attempt to avoid the prior factual findings" by Seibel that was "particularly inappropriate" since she "twice found (Crea) to be a danger to the community who could not safely be bailed before he was convicted."

The prosecutor was rankled that now, she wrote, all Crea's lawyers have to do is establish "by clear and convincing evidence," a medium standard of proof, that Stevie Wonder is not a danger to the community to be released on bail. Back then, Rothmann wrote, that was the standard of proof that prosecutors needed to overcome to detain him.

In any event, regarding the merits of Crea's appeal, the prosecutor stated, none of the defense arguments that Crea was wrongly convicted of Meldish's murder is "a close question or one that very well could be decided the other way," or one that would "likely . . . result in reversal or an order for a new trial on all counts." As a result, she wrote, bail pending appeal should be denied.

Seibel "did not err by revisiting" her pre-trial ruling to deny testimony by a jailhouse informer linking Crea to the Meldish murder, and she did not "abuse her discretion" by reversing her prior ruling during the trial and letting it in, the prosecutor wrote, because the judge correctly decided that "the evidence at trial dictate(d) a different conclusion."

Stevie Wonder's convictions for the killing of Meldish — one for murder in aid of racketeering and one for conspiring to murder Meldish — "are sound," Rothman wrote. But even if Crea was able to upset those convictions, she wrote, he should not be released on bail.

"Crea also faces a life sentence for his racketeering conspiracy conviction, and thus even without the murder," the prosecutor argued, "his sentence would not be lower than the 'total of the time already served plus the expected duration of the appeal process.'"

The appeals court is slated to hear oral arguments on the convictions of Crea, and his three codefendants who were all found guilty of racketeering and the murder of Meldish and are serving life sentences on May 8. According to the government, Luchese soldier Christopher Londonio and mob associate Terrence (Ted) Caldwell killed Meldish in the Bronx on orders from Crea and acting boss Matthew (Matty) Madonna.

Song Sung Blue: Feds Insist Stevie Blue Belongs Behind Bars For Life; His Lawyer Says He Should Be Freed Now

When Stephen (Stevie Blue) LoCurto caught a life sentence in federal court after he rolled the dice and went to trial for the 1986 "smoking gun murder" — so-called because he was arrested by police with a still warm murder weapon in his pocket — he filed a longshot lawsuit seeking to accept a 20-year plea offer he'd rejected and earn his release from prison. But the feds took just seven pages to make their closing argument in the Bonanno wiseguy's14-year-old lawsuit.

The feds' bottom line? Stevie Blue should serve the life sentence he received and not be allowed to plead guilty now to a 20-year prison term.

Prosecutors assert that LoCurto was not harmed by any lousy legal advice he received from an appeals lawyer, specifically that if convicted at trial, he would likely get a 20-year-sentence. The proof, they say, is that Stevie Blue, who was acquitted of the killing in state court, still maintains his innocence of the killing, and always planned to go to trial when he was hit with federal murder charges in 2004.

Prosecutors Tanya Hajjar and Andrew Roddin also note that in a 2010 letter to LoCurto, attorney Laura Oppenheim told Stevie Blue that she "never advised" him or "guaranteed" him that his "total exposure, should you be convicted at trial, would be limited to 20 years — a sentence of life was always a possibility."

The prosecutors wrote that at the evidentiary hearing last November 6, nearly 38 years after he killed rival Bonanno gangster Joseph Platia in midtown Manhattan, LoCurto still maintained his innocence. That was a major reason, they argued, why the mobster should not be permitted to cop a sweet guilty plea and walk out of prison as a free man.

Under cross-examination at the hearing, the prosecutors reminded U.S Magistrate Sanket Bulsara, "LoCurto denied responsibility not only for the Platia murder" but also for a marijuana distribution charge that "he would have needed to admit in order to plead guilty to the racketeering indictment."

"Well, I certainly claimed innocence when I was acquitted in New York State, and I claimed my innocence again when I was at the trial here," he testified. "I sold plenty of pot, but not during those years," he insisted during his grilling by Roddin.

"These denials demonstrate," the prosecutors wrote, that the advice of his attorneys, Oppenheim and trial lawyer Harry Batchelder, "resulted in no prejudice to him because as long as he maintains his innocence, there is no reasonable probability that he would have or could have pleaded guilty."

Attorney Bernard Freamon listed multiple reasons why LoCurto's conviction should be tossed. Among them was a judge's prior ruling that his client had gotten "unreasonable and unconstitutionally deficient legal advice" from Oppenheim which caused him to go to trial when he should have a accepted a 20-year-plea deal that the government had proposed.

"The previous Magistrate Judge" ruled "that there was simply no way that a competent attorney could have reached the conclusion that a life sentence would offend the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution," the lawyer wrote.

Based on U.S. Supreme Court rulings on ineffective assistance of counsel, the only issue left to decide is "whether that advice prejudiced" LoCurto's "decision-making on whether to negotiate for a 20-year plea," Freamon wrote. The case record clearly establishes that it did, Freamon argued, since Stevie Blue went to trial, instead of accepting a plea offer the feds had proposed in a letter to him like nine codefendants had done.

If not for the bad legal advice from Oppenheim, and the failure of trial lawyer Harry Batchelder to advise LoCurto that she "was wrong," Stevie Blue would have accepted the offer. His guilty plea would have then been accepted by the Court, and he would have gotten a prison term "less severe than under the judgment and sentence that were in fact imposed," the lawyer wrote.

"This is not a case based on speculation," Freamon wrote. "The government, in its November 1, 2005 letter, concretely proposed entering into plea negotiations that would have resulted in a 20-year sentence," he continued. "Counsel's error was palpable, egregious, and clearly bespoke of a breakdown in the adversarial process" that cannot be called "trivial," the lawyer wrote.

Freamon cited testimony by LoCurto at the hearing as well as his volatile personality as evidence that his client would surely have accepted a 20-year-plea offer if he had known that a life sentence was a virtual certainty if he was found guilty at trial in 2006.

"I'm not looking to get a life sentence," he testified. "I might be the least educated person in this room, but I'm not stupid and I'm not gonna go gamble a life sentence where it's guaranteed versus a 20-year where it's a possibility. And then if you do get the life sentence it's gonna get overturned."

LoCurto, 63, surely would not have "blithely accepted" Batchelder's opinion that he'd get a life sentence if convicted at trial compared to Oppenheim's assessment that he faced only 20 years "without raising any questions" about what was a "stark disagreement if there ever was one," the lawyer wrote.

Since Bulsara had observed LoCurto on the witness stand and at the defense table and had the opportunity to "gauge the kind of personality he has," the judge surely knew that his client "would have essentially gone 'ballistic' if confronted with such a disagreement" as he was about to go to trial, the lawyer wrote.

"The evidence shows that there was no disagreement from Batchelder and his testimony to the contrary is simply not credible," Freamon wrote, noting that "there is not one document that Batchelder can point to showing that he disagreed with Oppenheim's advice."

Given the reality that 97% percent of federal convictions "are the result of guilty pleas," the lawyer wrote, LoCurto's "statement that he would have pled guilty to the murder of Platia had he known that Oppenheim's advice was objectively unreasonable is eminently credible and should be given full recognition and credence by this court."

Like most defendants, LoCurto often asserts innocence, not because he is but "because litigation is oftentimes conducted like a blood sport" and gangsters think they gain points by "loudly protesting" innocence even when they know they are guilty, Freamon wrote.

The government's argument that LoCurto's "protestations of innocence" meant that he would not admit his guilt "is therefore specious and plainly incorrect," Freamon wrote, because "the record clearly documents his efforts to plead guilty, as is confirmed by his testimony, (and) the testimony of his trial counsel."

His acquittal in state court was a "point in his favor and would naturally suggest that he was in a good bargaining position, but it did not mean that he was unwilling to plead guilty," the lawyer wrote.

In addition, Freamon wrote, guilty pleas by five mobster codefendants of LoCurto, who did not admit any "racketeering activity" with the Bonanno family, "puts the lie to the" government claim that because Stevie Blue wouldn't admit an affiliation with the crime family during the hearing he would not have been able to plead guilty since the Bonanno quintet did so in his case.

"The actions of the court involving these defendants, [Bonanno mobsters Richard (Big Richie) Riccardi, Louis Restivo, Michael (Mickey Bats) Cardello, Peter (Petey Boxcars) Cosoleto, and John (Johnny Skyway) Palazzolo] shows that the court would have accepted his plea of guilty, if negotiations had progressed," Freamon wrote.

A Last Minute Plea Deal For Carmine Pizza And Pals As Feds Cut Eight Words

After pushing for trial for two years, mob capo Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito and a car dealer charged with running a sports gambling business with the wiseguy, got offers they couldn't refuse last week from prosecutors who weren't too eager to go to trial. The duo copped guilty pleas in a long, "wild and wooly" session last Friday evening, Gang Land has learned.

Polito was tape-recorded threatening to "break the face" of a deadbeat sports bettor, and threatening "to put him under the fucking bridge" if he didn't come up with the money he owed them. He now faces up to three years in prison according to his plea agreement. But his lawyer says he can and will contest that as excessive.

The wiseguy's accused partner in the sports betting operation, Mark Feuer, pleaded guilty to illegal gambling following a long and spirited outburst in which he charged prosecutors and FBI agents in the case of framing him as a bookmaker and accused his lawyer of making him lie to the court in order to get him to plead guilty.

Feuer, a former manager of Westbury Toyota, has been friends with Polito for years. The retired businessman insists he is "not a bookmaker," as his attorney Gary Farrell told Gang Land last month as he sought a severance from Carmine Pizza's scheduled trial. He's a gambler who is a "bookmaker's dream," said Farrell. "He played a lot, lost a lot, always paid."

Feuer, 60, blew his stack at the end of a long day. He had been waiting around in the courtroom of Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Vitaliano for hours to plead guilty to a crime he didn't believe he'd committed.

First, though, Vitaliano had to deal with the dual representation by lawyer Gerald McMahon of Polito and fellow Genovese wiseguy Joseph (Joe Fish) Macario, a time-consuming issue that prosecutors could have, and should have, raised many months ago since McMahon's been defending both mobsters since they were arrested back in August of 2022.

Then came the guilty pleas by Polito, 64, and Macario, 69. His sentencing guidelines are a lowly 10-to-16 months. That's not bad at all, since Joe Fish, like Carmine Pizza, pleaded guilty to a racketeering count. Another defendant, Joseph (Joe Box) Rutigliano, 65, an accused mob associate, pleaded guilty to illegal gambling with a recommended prison term between four and 10 months.

Once Feuer began yelling at everyone except the judge, Vitaliano called for a ten-minute break in the action. That worked wonders, according to one source, who called the veteran jurist the "MVP of the proceeding" for telling the by-then-calmed down Feuer, who had apologized to everyone for his outburst, to relax, adding that "it showed how much you care."

At that point, said Farrell, "Mark understood that he wasn't pleading guilty to being a bookmaker but that according to the law, because he helped a friend, who later cooperated against him, get an account with the service, he was guilty of illegal gambling, and that the feds had made us an offer we couldn't refuse."

"They began by wanting him to take 15-to-21 months and forfeit $100,000, but in the end, they agreed to guidelines calling for zero to six months," the lawyer added.

Feuer's plea agreement, and those of the other defendants, do not contain the usual prohibition that prevents defendants from contesting the stated recommended guidelines when they appear for sentencing. Prosecutors Anna Karamigios and Sean Sherman agreed to remove it from the plea agreements of all four defendants, McMahon told Gang Land, just a day before the quartet pleaded guilty.

The deal to remove a single sentence from the document, "The defendant stipulates to the above Guidelines calculation," came about, the lawyer said, after he insisted that Polito would reject the deal. If Polito had refused, that would've been the end of the global plea deal that ended the case.

"The excision of that sentence was a major bone of contention in our plea negotiations," McMahon said. Two hours after he told prosecutors in an email that "there was no deal" unless that sentence was removed, "the government agreed in a phone call to remove the sentence," he said.

He wasn't being a jerk, but making sure the government "wasn't screwing my client," McMahon insisted. "We believe the government's numbers are wrong," the lawyer said. "His guidelines, that we will argue at sentencing, should be 21-to-27 months."

Sources say the fifth defendant in the case, mob associate Salvatore (Sal the Shoemaker) Rubino, is part of the global plea deal, and is expected to plead guilty soon.

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for posting.

They really want Crea Sr to die like a dog in prison

[Tonyd621]

The feds and their popcorn farts.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the post.

[DonPeppino386]

Thanks for posting. Crazy to read because Crea can move. Seems like Carmine made a nice deal.