Gangland July 11th 2024

[Dr031718]

Luchese Family's 'Tony Soprano' Cashes In His Chips

Joseph (Joe C) Caridi, who was dubbed "the Tony Soprano of the Luchese family" two decades ago by state prosecutors who charged him with running a racketeering ring out of a Brentwood LI strip club, has cashed in his chips after a long illness. He was 75.

Caridi, a former Luchese consigliere, later resolved that case by pleading guilty to federal racketeering charges that included the shakedown of $10,000 a night from a popular Freeport LI night club. Joe C folded after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn threatened to indict his wife for tax fraud. He died at his East Northport home on June 29.

Caridi, who was released from federal prison in 2009 after serving an eight-year prison term for what his sentencing judge called a "friendly extortion," had lost the use of his legs several years ago after suffering a sepsis infection while hospitalized, and was essentially retired from The Life, according to an old friend.

At the time of his death, he was confined to a wheelchair. But back in November of 2002, Joe C was riding high.

He had a large crew that included five wiseguys, including John (Johnny Sideburns) Cerella, who'd been on a Genovese "waiting list," and Carmelo (Carlo) Profeta, a onetime driver for murderous Gambino soldier Roy DeMeo. Caridi had been promoted to consigliere by jailed for life family boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso.

Caridi was tagged as a Soprano-style mobster by the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office when it charged him with enterprise corruption as the leader of a diverse crew of 15 gangsters who used gambling, loansharking, extortion, bid rigging and drug dealing schemes they ran out of Sinderella's Adult Center in Brentwood to rake in $1.5 million in proceeds.

"Joseph Caridi is the Tony Soprano of the Luchese family," assistant district attorney James Chalifoux stated at a news conference standing behind a table that that included $70,000 in stacks of 20s, 50s, and $100 bills, a large bag of marijuana, a .25 caliber pistol and a switchblade that cops had seized in raids from the east end of Long Island to the Bronx.

"This is a real-life Sopranos case," said then DA Thomas Spota. He promoted Caridi a notch above his real wiseguy rank to link Joe C to the reel-life rank that Tony Soprano had in the smash HBO show that aired in 1999 and was the rage at the time. Their case had "an underboss living in suburbia, meetings taking place at their kids' football games, and Sinderella's, a place similar to the Bada Bing," Spota declared.

Police had begun investigating Caridi earlier that year when his crew members strongarmed the strip club owner, Robert Scherer, out of his club, and began stealing $5000 a week in club receipts. "He was removed from his place of business by force," Chalifoux said. "He had a gun placed to his head and told not to return."

Caridi's crew took control of the cash cow after the club's owners, Roger and Frank Basile, asked the Lucheses to oust mob associate Lewis Kasman, an investor in 2000 when the club opened. Kasman allegedly began stealing so much cash that the owners feared bankruptcy but were afraid to confront the self-described adopted son of John Gotti about it, prosecutors said at the time.

Caridi, of East Northport, was released on $100,000 bail and was preparing to fight the charges on the grounds that Scherer was the heavy in the case. Two of Joe C's codefendants, who had been business partners with Scherer, had accused the club owner three months earlier of wrongly ousting them from their joint venture in a lawsuit they had filed.

"We went by the law, and the law sided with us," defense attorney John Ray told Newsday, adding that the state racketeering charges were "bogus."

The feds scotched Joe C's plan to fight the charges three weeks later. They hit Caridi and more than two dozen others, including Cerella and Profeta, with a slew of racketeering charges going back to 1995. The charges included the theft of up to $10,000 a night that summer from the outdoor cash bar of a popular night club on the Nautical Mile of restaurants, bars, and boutique shops along the Woodcleft Canal in Freeport — Hudson & McCoy Fish House And Bar.

Joe C and his crew quickly sent Kasman packing, but the brothers Basile paid a stiff price.

Caridi installed a manager and an accountant who simply drained the receipts from an outdoor cash bar open during the summer months of 2002 of up to $10,000 a night by excluding them from the club's "other earnings and ensuring that they were not reflected in the restaurant’s books and records," according to court filings.

In addition to the Hudson & McCoy shakedown, Joe C was charged with heading a racketeering enterprise that included gambling, loansharking, drug dealing and extortions of many businesses throughout the metro area, including several restaurants, a delicatessen and a car dealer.

The feds also cited Caridi's "lavish lifestyle" and hit him with five counts of defrauding the IRS by filing "false and misleading personal income tax returns" for tax years 1997 to 2001. Sources say that led Joe C to quickly plead guilty to resolve the state and federal charges when the feds threatened to charge his wife Lorna with tax fraud for the returns that she signed, if he didn't.

"Joe told his lawyer to take the first plea offer the feds gave him," said one attorney in the case. "He told the other defendants they didn't have to, but a bunch followed their leader," the lawyer recalled.

Less than four months later, on March 19, 2003, Caridi pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to racketeering charges in a plea deal that covered his state charges and called for a prison term up to nine and a half years. The deal included a provision that Joe C forfeit $400,000 to the IRS, which he did.

Four codefendants, including Johnny Sideburns Cerella followed their leader, according to the docket sheet.

It was during Cerella's sentencing that Judge Nicholas Garaufis stated that even though the defendant took part in a "friendly extortion" of the Hudson & McCoy owners in an effort to avoid an unwanted shakedown by Kasman, Johnny Sideburns was still guilty of extortion, and like Caridi, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

At the time, Joe C and the others also knew that they had been implicated in taped talks with Luchese mobster Vincent (Vinny Baldy) Salanardi, who began cooperating with the feds after his arrest. But several sources told Gang Land that it was the threat to charge Caridi's wife with tax fraud that prompted the wiseguy to tell his lawyer to accept the first plea offer they made.

This past Saturday, following a funeral mass at St. Anthony of Padua R.C. Church in East Northport, Joe C's close friends and relatives celebrated his life at a repast at the Cafe Testarossa in Syosset. Caridi was cremated at the Mount Pleasant Crematory in Center Moriches.

Many neighbors and friends said good bye to Caridi and expressed their regrets about his passing to his widow Lorna at a one-day wake on Friday at the Branch Funeral Home in Commack, with numerous pictures of a smiling Caridi with family members and friends on display. Mourners included Luchese family members and associates as well as representatives of the Genovese, Colombo and Gambino families, according to law enforcement officials who covered the wake.

In addition to his wife, Caridi is believed to be survived by four adult children, sons Joseph Jr. and Michael, and daughters Laina and Frankie, and by numerous grandchildren and other relatives that can be seen on a 30-minute-long video montage on the Branch Funeral Home website.

Editor's Note: Gang Land is a taking a slide next week. We'll be back with more real stuff about organized crime in two weeks, on July 25.

Judge Okays Federal Loansharking Case Made By Naked Cooperating Witness

Brooklyn Federal Judge Hector Gonzalez heeded the request from Bonanno soldier John (Bazoo) Ragano to listen to a tape-recorded talk between him and a buck naked cooperating witness and determine whether the feds have a triable case against him. The judge listened and decided, yes, there's enough there to bring Ragano to trial on loansharking and obstruction of justice charges. He rejected the mobster's request to dismiss the indictment.

Gonzalez seemed to agree with Ragano's contention that the July 5, 2023 conversation between the wiseguy and his loanshark victim was the government's most important evidence that Bazoo continued to use extortionate means to try and collect the same $150,000 loan from the same victim eight months after he had pleaded guilty to charges involving the same $150,000 loan.

But the judge disagreed with the mobster's claim that the evidence was insufficient to bring the case to trial.

In his 11-page ruling, the judge included numerous excerpts from the angry rant by Ragano that was somehow secretly recorded by loanshark victim Vincent Martino even after Bazoo insisted that Martino strip off his clothes to show he wasn't wearing a wire.

The ruling quotes Ragano telling Vincent Martino, "You owe me my fucking money, let's see how you're gonna do when I get out (of prison)."

Before his tirade ended, Gonzalez wrote, Bazoo is also heard saying, "If I fucking slap the shit out of you, you're gonna tell on me?" As well as: "You give me my fucking money and we'll call it even." And: "You fucking scumbag." And: "I'll see you when I get out tough guy." And, lastly: "Don't forget I know where you're at now."

The judge dismissed Ragano's contention that the first two counts of the indictment do not allege any facts that he committed loansharking and conspired to use extortionate means to collect the loan, and that the feds hadn't given him enough info about the charges to enable him to defend himself.

The indictment is "sparse," Gonzalez wrote, but it contains the "approximate times and locations" where the crimes took place between November of 2022 until July 5 of last year, when Martino was able to tape record Ragano's alleged threats even after he had taken off all his clothes during their confrontation at a salvage yard where Bazoo was working.

And the feds have given Ragano "more than enough information" about the charges, Gonzalez wrote. It includes "25 audio recordings" and "draft and partial transcripts" of statements that Bazoo and a cohort identified only as "Co-Conspirator #1," have made, as well as "toll records for cellphones" they used, the judge wrote.

In addition, Ragano has also received the voluminous discovery of the prior case where Bazoo and Martino were codefendants, Gonzalez wrote. Ragano and Martino were charged with drug dealing in the same indictment — the racketeering case in which members of the Colombo family were convicted of shaking down a union leader for 20 years — as the one in which Ragano pleaded guilty to loansharking charges involving a $150,000 loan he gave Martino.

The judge also rejected two other arguments by Ragano about the July 5, 2023 recording: That it failed to show that Bazoo had harassed Martino because he had caused Bazoo "to be distressed" by falsely "accusing the Defendant of cooperating with the government." And that it failed to show that Ragano knew that Martino "was a witness," or had intimidated him.

At this stage of the case, Gonzalez wrote, the allegations in the indictment combined with the "audio recordings" and the "discovery produced by the government" are sufficient to bring the case to trial "regarding the extortionate conduct, witness tampering, and witness harassment charged in the indictment."

The judge also knocked down as premature, a defense request to order the government to disclose whether Co-Conspirator #1 -- the friend who Ragano allegedly told Martino would collect the loan payments for him -- has received immunity and is prepared to testify against Bazoo if he contests the charges at trial.

Any "promises of immunity, leniency or preferred treatment" for any government witnesses, if they exist, is not due "until the Friday before trial," Gonzalez wrote. "If such materials exist and are not produced at the appropriate time," the judge wrote, Ragano is "free to seek any appropriate relief then."

Ragano, who began serving a 57 month prison term for his guilt to the original loansharking charge a year ago, has been offered a plea deal to dispose of the current loansharking indictment. He has until September 9 to decide whether to take it or go to trial.

It Was War Against the Mafia; Now It's Mafia Takedown: The Incredible True Story of the FBI Agent Who Devastated The New York Mob

The promised tell-all book by an FBI agent about the takedown of the leaders of the powerful Genovese crime family during a stressful — to say the least — three year sting operation by a turncoat gangster that was slated for publication this past Spring has got new life. After a co-author bailed out, the book has been revised, refreshed and revitalized. It will be published in November, Gang Land has learned.

It has a new look, and a new title but it is still written by ex-G-man Mike Campi. And it still contains the amazing assertion by FBI operative Michael (Cookie) D'Urso that he was coerced into an unwanted sexual relationship by former FBI agent Joy Adam from mid-1998 until April of 2001 while he was tape-recording hundreds of conversations with gangsters from all five families.

The new title, created by the powers that be at Skyhorse Publishing is a mouthful — Mafia Takedown: The Incredible True Story of the FBI Agent Who Devastated The New York Mob — but truth be told, it's only one word more than the full title of Mob Boss, the book about acting Luchese boss Alfonso (Little Al) D'Arco by Tom Robbins and yours truly.

A Skyhorse Publishing spokesman told Gang Land that Mafia Takedown will likely be published between two mob milestone dates in November. One, November 14, 1957 relates to the American Mafia, or Cosa Nostra. The other, November 30, 1994, pertains to the primary focus of Campi's book.

The 1957 date, most Gang Land readers should recognize, is the day that FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover was forced to acknowledge that there was an Italian American organized crime network. That day, state police rounded up 58 high-ranked mobsters who had attended a Mafia conclave at the home of Joseph Barbara, in Apalachin, NY.

Some were arrested in Barbara's home. Others were stopped in cars as they fled after the place was raided. Still others were caught running through the woods adjacent to the sprawling 58-acre estate that was the home of the Pittstown Pennsylvania mob boss.

The other date is closer to the book's core: Thirty years ago, at 2 AM on November 30, D'Urso and his cousin Tino Lombardi were both shot in the head as they were playing cars at the San Guiseppe Social Club in Williamsburg with Genovese crime family associates Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito and Mario (The Baker) Fortunato. Lombardi was killed.

D'Urso survived, and lived to testify against the duo, who were both charged with the slaying of Lombardi and the attempted murder of D'Urso.

They were convicted of racketeering and murder at their Brooklyn Federal Court trial in 2003 and sentenced to life behind bars. But their convictions were reversed by a federal appeals court, which ruled that prosecutors had failed to prove that the killing and attempted murder had anything to do with the Genovese crime family.

A Brooklyn Supreme Court jury acquitted Polito of all charges at his trial in 2007. Fortunato was found guilty of Lombardi's murder by the judge who heard and saw the same evidence that the jury had heard. He criticized the jury's decision, found Fortunato guilty, and sent him to prison for 15 years to life.

After Fortunato spent 22 months behind bars, a state appeals reversed his conviction and he was released again, this time for good.

In a truly incredible turnabout for an accused gangster who was twice found guilty of a mob murder, The Baker won a $300,000 settlement with New York State for his wrongful conviction in 2014.

Based on the earlier version of the book, which was excerpted here last year, Gang Land expects Campi's Mafia Takedown to pack a powerful punch about the inside story of D'Urso's amazing undercover operation, and lots more.

[AntComello]

Thanks for posting

[mike68]

Editor's Note: Gang Land is a taking a slide next week. We'll be back with more real stuff about organized crime in two weeks, on July 25.

'real stuff', if that's not a shot across the bow, I don't know what is.

[DonPeppino386]

Thanks for posting. Glad the book is slated to be released again.

[TommyGambino]

Another week off for Capeci haha

[stubbs]

There’s already a book called Takedown about a cop who infiltrated the mob from 2002. It’s a pretty good read about the garbage rackets in the nineties, Allie Shades is mentioned often.

[Dr031718]

Editor's Note: Gang Land is a taking a slide next week. We'll be back with more real stuff about organized crime in two weeks, on July 25.

'real stuff', if that's not a shot across the bow, I don't know what is.

He puts that “real” stuff in everytime he takes a week off

[OcSleeper]

Thanks for posting Dr

[Pmac2]

still hands down the best in the biz. an best ever. ty 4 the post.

[Blunts]

Thanks for posting.

[chin_gigante]

Glad the book's still coming out, should be a good read

[SonnyBlackstein]

Capeci's favorite saying is 'cashing in his chips'

[Little_Al1991]

Capeci's favorite saying is 'cashing in his chips'

“Cooling his heals” is another one

For a while, “put some meat here on this bone for me” was a contender

He’s the best in the business
I’m not taking shots at him by saying what I’ve said

[SonnyBlackstein]

Capeci's favorite saying is 'cashing in his chips'

“Cooling his heals” is another one

For a while, “put some meat here on this bone for me” was a contender

He’s the best in the business
I’m not taking shots at him by saying what I’ve said

Agree. For a writer he's surprisingly un-writeable.