Gangland April 18th 2024

[Dr031718]

Feds Sill Pursuing Carmine Pizza And A Money-Making, Violence Prone Cohort

Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito has copped a plea deal to resolve a two-year-old racketeering indictment, but the feds are far from done with him, Gang Land has learned. And that goes double for one of the acting Genovese capo's associates who already has racked up more than $800,000 in thefts on his violence-filled mob resume.

Polito's prolific associate is a gangster named Anthony Costa who has been spotted in frequent meetings with Carmine Pizza. The duo, sources say, remain the target of an investigation by the FBI and Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office into alleged gambling and loansharking activity. In February, the feds seized two of Polito's cell phones as well as one belonging to Costa.

Still, it's so far, so good for Polito whose attorney says the federal inquiry is "much ado about nothing." But sources tell Gang Land that a federal grand jury in Brooklyn has subpoenaed a Costa colleague to testify before the panel, and that FBI agents recently used a court authorized search warrant to hunt for evidence at an undisclosed location.

Prosecutors say Carmine Pizza has been meeting with Costa, 57, in a Long Island City coffee shop to discuss Genovese crime family business. The meet ups allegedly took place during hours when Polito was supposed to be working as a unionized cement mason for the Sorbora Construction Company, a job he began a year before his arrest in August of 2022, according to what he told pretrial services.

In court filings, prosecutors Sean Sherman and Anna Karamigios allege that Polito, who'd told the feds in September that he now worked for High Rise Safety Systems, Inc., on Jackson Avenue in Queens, "does not work in construction" but has been conducting crime family business across the street at the Paris Baguette café.

The prosecutors did not identify Costa in their filing with Judge Eric Vitaliano in which they sought, unsuccessfully, to revoke Carmine Pizza's bail for "Polito's ongoing criminal activity and utter disregard for his conditions of pretrial release." But several sources confirm that in recent months, FBI agents assert they spotted Polito meeting at the coffee chop with Costa.

Costa's own resume is long and complex: Law enforcement sources say that before Costa hooked up with Polito, he was "with" New Jersey based Genovese wiseguy Robert Reino and had dealings with former Gambino family consigliere Michael (Mickey Boy) Paradiso and with Luchese soldier Salvatore Cutaia.

Costa's multiple prison sentences for his 20-year-old crimes should have been behind him by 2015.

But he had to spend five more months in prison for threatening an NYPD cop while on supervised release. That stint came after many years behind bars for an intriguing trifecta of arrests and federal convictions in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey involving a staggering series of ripoffs totaling $838,673 in the ten year period from 1993 to 2004.

Corso's first arrests were in 1993, for possessing and cashing $492,309 in forged securities, according to companion indictments filed in Manhattan and Newark Federal Courts. For those schemes, Costa copped plea deals in 1995 and 1996 that cost him a two year prison term.

Costa was ordered to pay restitution of $296,122 to three corporate victims in the Newark case and $16,318 of the stolen cash in the Manhattan case. He was also ordered to "make a good faith effort" to pay "whatever portion of the remaining $179,868 in losses (he) can reasonably pay" to his two New York victims, according to court records in both cases.

According to the Manhattan docket sheet, Costa made restitution payments totaling $3000 that ended in 2001. It's unclear how well he did paying back the rest of his assessments since the court files are in storage someplace far from the metropolitan area.

But things got violent in December of 2003 when Costa spotted a cooperating witness who had fingered him for the 1993 ripoffs dining at a Manhattan restaurant. Costa allegedly called him a "fucking rat," and doled out a savage beating, leaving him bloodied before stomping out of the eatery, according to charges that were lodged against him in Newark in 2005.

Before the feds could gather enough evidence to arrest Costa for the bloody assault, however, he managed to rip off $346,364 from a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn bank during a 12 day span in November of 2004, according to Brooklyn Federal Court records.

He did so by opening an account with a counterfeit $347,700 check on November 6, 2004. Over the next two weeks, he looted the account. "I went to the bank several times to withdraw some money, cash, and bank checks. That's what I did, he said when he confessed to bank fraud on May 12, 2005.

Unlucky with fraud, he was lucky with his lawyer. According to a great plea deal devised by Costa's attorney, the late Charles Carnesi, Brooklyn federal prosecutor Jeffrey Rabkin and Mark Rufolo, the Chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force in Newark, both agreed to ask for concurrent guideline prison terms, meaning that his maximum prison term would be 57 months for the assault of the government witness in his 1993 cases.

Carnesi also convinced both judges to allow his client, who was then living in a lovely home on a quiet cul-de-sac in the Princes Bay section of Staten Island, to remain free on bail, even after he was sentenced to 57 months in Newark in September of 2005. That turned out to be Costa's undoing when it was time to face the music for his bank fraud sentencing in Brooklyn.

That's because before his sentencing the following August, Costa felt he needed more cash before beginning his 57 month bid. That's when he committed a scam described in court papers as a "pawn shop fraud." The new crime caused AUSA Rabkin to object to a concurrent sentence, which was his prerogative, according to Costa's plea agreement that forbade all criminal activity.

The specifics of the "pawn shop fraud" are not detailed in any of the publicly filed court papers. But in dismissing Costa's efforts to blame Carnesi for the consecutive 51 month sentence that Judge Frederic Block meted out, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals noted that Costa signed a "new agreement" that okayed a consecutive sentence when the feds agreed not to charge him for the "pawn shop fraud."

The fraudster's life didn't get any simpler during, or after, his nine year sentence.

He ended up serving five months in prison and four months of home detention after he was busted for violating his five years of supervised release for threatening a Staten Island cop during an altercation with the officer that ended with his arrest in June of 2015.

When a Staten Island judge released him on bail and Costa was charged with a VOSR, federal prosecutor Hiral Mehta asked U.S Magistrate Cheryl Pollok to remand him, stating that "the NYPD has had two police officers parked outside the victim's house because they consider it to be a credible threat and they have been there until he was arrested in federal court."

There was trouble on the home front as well. The prosecutor noted that while Costa "was in a halfway house" in October of 2013 "he was released and remanded back to the MDC because he threatened to light his ex-wife on fire and kill her." And while in prison, "he was disciplined because they found a letter he had smuggled out of the SHU (segregated housing unit with) information about hurting another inmate."

The prosecutor also reminded the court about the 2003 restaurant beating which AUSA Mehta said came after Costa "walked into a restaurant in Manhattan in broad daylight and beat a government cooperating witness at the dinner table, calling him an 'F-in' rat' and the person fell over and was bleeding from his nose."

Costa deserves to be returned to prison, he argued, for threatening an NYPD cop who "was so scared that he asked his precinct to provide security until the defendant was in custody," as well as for having threatened "to light his ex-wife on fire" and for "repeatedly bea(ting) a government witness for cooperating against him."

Pollok agreed. She noted that while the "two police officers sitting outside" the victim's house hadn't seen Costa in the area, that probably was "more a testament to the fact that he's smarter than maybe we might think because he's not going to try to attack a police officer with two squad cars outside the guy's house."

Since his release from home detention in March of 2016, Costa has been smart enough to avoid any further arrests by police or the feds. So far.

Judge Set To Uphold The One Punch Extortion Conviction Of Aging Genovese Wiseguy

Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Komitee has a few questions as to why prosecutors failed to turn over evidence to the defense that a key government witness in the one-punch extortion case against an aging Genovese mobster was affiliated with the Albanian Mafia. But whatever the answers, he's indicated that he doesn't think their failure to do so mandates a reversal of the two convictions in the case.

Komitee stated Monday that he would issue a written ruling regarding the convictions of 86-year-old Anthony (Rom) Romanello and codefendant Joseph Celso, 51. But the judge clearly indicated that he would deny their motion for a new trial by denying their requests for bail and maintaining his intention to sentence them later this month.

The judge told prosecutors Dana Rehnquist, Irisa Chen, and Rebecca Schuman that he wanted a fuller explanation of why they didn't turn over the so-called Brady Material before trial as they are required to do. He also said he wants to know what the U.S. Attorney's office is doing to prevent it from happening in the future in other criminal cases that it files.

But Komitee did not encourage trial lawyers Gerald McMahon and Gerard Marrone, or appeals specialist Brendan White, to expect that he would reverse the convictions of Romanello and Celso for conspiring to extort $86,000 in gambling debts from Manhattan restaurateur Bruno Selimaj that his relatives owed to a Queens-based bookmaker.

The attorneys argued that in a taped talk, an Albanian gangster backed up Rom's defense that "Romanello felt compelled to stand up for himself when Bruno tried to insult and intimidate him" and that his punch was not a threat about a gambling debt when he stated that Selimaj was a member of the Albanian Mafia and had told Romanello that before he hit Selimaj in the mouth.

"This was not only consistent with the defense theory at trial, it would have strengthened it considerably," they wrote, because "it undercut the prosecution theory" that the punch was an extortion threat since it "would have been directly supportive of the defense theory that there was no effort to extort Bruno."

In a pre-sentence memo, attorney Marrone argued that probation officials had wrongly upped Celso's sentencing guidelines to more than four years in prison in their Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) to the Court by asserting that Celso had been involved in obstruction of justice when he was acquitted of that and there was no testimony that linked him to an effort to obstruct justice.

"As the Court is aware and has stated at Mr. Celso's detention hearing after his conviction, he is a minor participant in this case," Marrone wrote, arguing that Celso's sentencing guidelines should be 33-to-41 months.

Even in the Probation Department's PSR, "Celso is not mentioned until the end of this case," the lawyer wrote, "the evening of the infamous punch at Bruno's Steakhouse. Watching surveillance video of the incident," Marrone continued, "one can see that Mr. Celso is merely present and takes no part in any violence or force, nor even conversation for that matter."

Noting that in addition to his client's "minimal participation in this case," Celso suffers from thyroid cancer, the attorney asked Komitee to sentence Celso "much further below the guidelines then what U.S. Probation recommends."

Carmine Pizza Says He Wants To Work Construction Before He Goes To Prison; No He Doesn't, Say The Feds; He Should Stay Home

He says he needs to work 600 hours before he goes to prison in order to earn health coverage for his wife of 42 years who suffers from heart disease. But prosecutors say the only work Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito's done since his arrest has been for the Genovese crime family and now that he's pleaded guilty, he should stay home until it's time to do his time for the crime.

In seeking a daily furlough from Polito's home detention to work, his attorney states that his client desperately needs the health insurance that comes with the job. That's because virtually all of the medical expenses for Polito's wife Victoria, who has had "open heart surgery" and other operations during the last two years, has been paid for by the "health insurance coverage" his client earned by working as a "union cement mason."

"For Mrs. Polito to have continuing health insurance coverage for the year 2025," lawyer Gerald McMahon told Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Vitaliano, his client needs to work the minimum of 600 hours to qualify for the benefits.

Prosecutors objected, asserting that Polito is not hefting much cement on the job. They argue that during the two years that Polito had permission to work he was actually conducting Genovese crime family business with a mob associate in a café across the street from where he claimed to be doing construction work. The feds offered surveillance reports by FBI agents that led to Polito having his bail revoked last month.

McMahon countered that the government "is wrong" that because Polito has pleaded guilty his bail conditions should be "more stringent." In fact, he argued, they should be "less stringent" because he now faces up to a 20 year sentence "if he were foolish and untrustworthy enough to violate the bail conditions" that the Court imposed.

The government is also wrong in assuming that Polito must have a "no-show job" because the FBI "has never observed Polito performing construction work," McMahon wrote. In fact, the lawyer argued, "all the construction work the defendant performs (rebar-patching walls) is indoors, and not visible to Federal agents."

His client "did have one or two meetings with an individual" at a café when he was supposed to be working, but "other than that, the cafe was a coffee shop where he conducted no business other than having coffee and a bagel," McMahon wrote in his court filings, and argued in court.

"The government does not deny that Mrs. Polito has serious medical problems, or that defendant would earn another year's worth of health insurance (for 2025) if he worked 600 hours before he surrendered to serve his sentence," the lawyer wrote. "With a 20-year sentence hanging over his head, he should be allowed to work until he surrenders to serve any sentence of imprisonment."

Vitaliano reserved a final decision on the issue. In the meantime, the judge ordered Polito to submit written answers to several questions before April 26: Can Polito "satisfy his (600-hour) work requirement by administrative, or other, remote work assignments" or "through reassignment to a location different from his most recent work site?"

Polito was also asked to identify "any exceptions from the work requirement for physical or other disabilities." He was also "directed to identify an employer, employee of the same employer, or union official who can confirm the information" that he submits to the judge "in response to this order."

On Tuesday, the fifth and final defendant in the racketeering indictment against Polito, mob associate Salvatore (Sal the Shoemaker) Rubino copped a plea deal to illegal gambling, a conviction calling for a recommended prison term between four and 10 months.

[Southshore88]

Thanks for posting

[dack2001]

Haha Costa...that's the way to stand on business.

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting!

[OcSleeper]

Thanks for posting

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for posting.

Was there an image of Costa.

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting.

Was there an image of Costa.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks Johnny!

[DonPeppino386]

Thanks for posting.