NJ Genovese

[TSNYC]

Thanks for posting Wiseguy.

FWIW, Larry wecker’s companies did a lot of drywall work on Dabies projects on jersey side of Hudson. Can only imagine what other mobbed up firms were involved.

[OcSleeper]

Didn't think this was worth it's own thread. Just a NJ Commission of Investigation report from May, which lists some connections to the Genovese family that a developer has. The developer's ties to local officials of Edgewater in Bergen County being the main focus of the inquiry. Elsewhere, the unnamed Genovese member mentioned was said to be the late Michael "Tona" Borelli.

https://www.nj.gov/sci/pdf/Edgewater%20 ... 0Final.pdf

Fred Daibes, Bob Menendez, his wife, and 2 other businessmen have been charged with corruption.

[JoelTurner]

I saw that, taking gold bars is cartoonishly corrupt lmao. I guess they were out of bags of cash with a dollar sign on them

[bn]

Larry Dentico:

- Born Aug 22 1923
- Father: Frank Dentico from Gioia del Colle, Bari, Puglia
- Mother: Madeline Palazzo, family from Cosenza, Calabria
- Brother: Joseph “Joe Bari” Dentico, E Harlem dope guy and member
- Part of the Greenwich Village crew
- Moved to Jersey City in the late ‘50s
- Lived at 333 Sip Ave, Jersey City, NJ in 1966
- Grandson Lawrence is involved in drugs with other mob guys

—————

Louis Gatto:

- Born Sep 2 1916 in Patterson, NJ
- Father: Matthew Gatto from Sarno, Salerno, Campania
- Mother: Josephine Mautone from Cuccaro Vetere, Salerno, Campania
- Wife: Josephine DeStefano
- Daughter was married to Alan Wolshonak, his right-hand man. He was Italian through his mother and later took her maiden name “Greco”
- Inherited the LaPlaca crew in ~1979
- His sons Joseph (d.2010) and Louis Jr. (d.2000) were also made men

————-

Dentico was definitely more powerful as he was a part of the Genovese family’s ruling panel. He may have been consigliere too.

Gatto strikes me as being more blue-collar, involved in theft, gambling, etc. He had a large crew but a lot of the guys were old. The most notable member was Tino Fiumara.

Joseph 'Joe Bari' Dentico was the uncle of Larry, not brother. Joe probably wasn't made.

[JohnnyS]

I wasn't aware that Joseph Gatto was at one time on the shelf.

[chin_gigante]

I wasn't aware that Joseph Gatto was at one time on the shelf.

That’s a great find. It clears up some of the confusion about Gatto’s rank after his release from prison:

Gatto’s rank in the Genovese crime family was not clear Wednesday night.
In May, the State Commission of Investigation claimed he filled the captain’s role vacated by his deceased father, who had been in prison, and reported directly to family leaders in New York. The FBI also named him a captain in a 1998 federal racketeering indictment.
But law enforcement officials on Wednesday said Gatto controls much of his father's old numbers rackets but isn’t one of the Genovese family’s three New Jersey captains. Gatto, released from federal prison last year after serving a 61-month term, remains a soldier, said state police Detective Mark Doyle…State authorities said three captains control New Jersey for the Genovese family: Angelo M Prisco runs the Jersey City and Bayonne waterfront; Ocean County resident Ludwig ‘Ninny’ Bruschi, who awaits trial on a 2003 racketeering charge, controls Northern New Jersey and Silvio DeVita controls the Newark area.

Tom Troncone, ‘Dozens Arrested Had Mob Ties in Gambling Ring Bust, Authorities Say’, The Record (Bergen), 9 December 2004.

I’ve also got a few other snippets confirming the overlap between Gatto, Bruschi, and Anthony Palumbo:

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[chin_gigante]

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This snippet also describes Palumbo’s affiliation prior to the case, noting that he took over Jimmy Napoli’s ‘crew’ in 1992:

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I’m not sure however whether this strictly means that Palumbo was promoted to captain or acting captain in the 1990s. He was indicted as an associate along with Daniel Pagano after Napoli’s death. Then in the 2000s an informant told the FBI that Palumbo was a soldier:

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Affiliation with the West Side crew would make sense considering his prior connections to Pagano and Napoli, and the fact that it was Danny Leo who put him in charge of New Jersey operations in 2006 (per the indictment).

[Wiseguy]

These are some great finds but they bring up as many questions as they answer. Palumbo takes over the Napoli Brooklyn crew in in 1992 but is only an associate when busted with Pagano, a West Side/Greenwich Village crew soldier, in 1997? I have to assume Palumbo was made well in advance of that fuel tax case, and like we've seen several times in the Genovese family, somebody from that crew was then put over another crew.

That said, it doesn't seem Palumbo ever technically rose above acting captain, even by 2009 when he was said to be running crews in Brooklyn (the former Napoli crew) and New Jersey (the former Gatto/Bruschi crew). The most recent info has Barry Nichilo running that Brooklyn crew. It's also unclear what Palumbo's current status is, as well as what became of those specific operations in New Jersey.

[chin_gigante]

So in terms of NJ Genovese regimes, we can trace Boiardo through to DeVita, and Gene Catena through to Gatto/Bruschi/Palumbo. We can follow DeCarlo through to Sally Lombardi, but as far as I'm aware we don't know what happened to that crew after Lombardi's conviction.

Fiumara possibly splits off from the Catena/LaPlaca/Gatto crew after getting out of prison in the 1990s. LCN Bios cites Larry Ricci being introduced as an acting captain to George Barone in the mid-1990s. Michael D'Urso testified that Fiumara was a captain. He's listed in the NJSCI report but not by law enforcement in December 2004.

Prisco seeming to have inherited a portion of the West Side crew (the FBI were carrying him as a captain by 1990) before relocating to Jersey. Probably the same situation with Dentico, though the FBI Newark Office were carrying him as an acting captain. He had at least one member reporting direct to him (per his NJ federal indictment) and was a constant on the administration between at least 1998 and 2004.

[JoelTurner]

We can follow DeCarlo through to Sally Lombardi, but as far as I'm aware we don't know what happened to that crew after Lombardi's conviction.

I’m curious, where does the idea that Sally Lombardi inherited DeCarlo’s crew come from? I would say that Boiardo’s crew absorbed them

By the time he passed in Oct 1973, they had dwindled to 6 guys. Among them, Joe “The Indian” Polverino was identified as being in Boiardo’s faction in 1983 & the ones on the Shore (Merola, Miraglia, Percello) were essentially with Pussy Russo.

[chin_gigante]

We can follow DeCarlo through to Sally Lombardi, but as far as I'm aware we don't know what happened to that crew after Lombardi's conviction.

I’m curious, where does the idea that Sally Lombardi inherited DeCarlo’s crew come from? I would say that Boiardo’s crew absorbed them

By the time he passed in Oct 1973, they had dwindled to 6 guys. Among them, Joe “The Indian” Polverino was identified as being in Boiardo’s faction in 1983 & the ones on the Shore (Merola, Miraglia, Percello) were essentially with Pussy Russo.

Interesting point. All I have on the crew lineage from DeCarlo to Lombardi comes from the Steve Lenehan:

[Polverino] could have been the captain after Gyp DeCarlo died but didn't want it...Sally Dogs sought his advice on all important matters involving the crew...Everyone thinks I was with Nicky Olivieri, but I was really with Joe the Indian when I came home from the can...Anyway when Joe the Indian died I didn't want to go with Sally Dogs Lombardi because I wasn't going to answer to Lenny Macaluso. I went to meet Sally Dogs at his 50th birthday party at Pastels in Brooklyn...He knew I was with Jerry Chilli all the time and I told him I'd like to stay with Jerry because I wanted to move to Florida. The next day I went with Jerry to Lees Tavern in Staten Island and we had lunch with Sally and Joey 'Mann' Maniscalco, a made guy with Sally. They released me to Jerry and then we went to Bath Avenue to see Anthony Spero and it was official.

Scott M Deitche, 'Interview with Steve Lenehan', American Mafia, September 2001, https://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_162.html.

On that note, I'm quite curious about Joseph Ruggiero. The NYPD identified him as Tommy Lombardi's successor in 1988 in their submission for the 25 Years After Valachi US Senate report, but then nothing else is heard about him as far as I can tell and Sally Lombardi ends up as the captain. Based on my Ancestry research, I don't think Ruggiero died until 2006.

[B.]

Interesting Gatto was shelved. Followers of this stuff don't necessarily realize how often guys are shelved / taken off the shelf for reasons we wouldn't otherwise assume. Pennisi's info has shed a lot of light on that along with other intel that trickles out.

[Brovelli]

On the flip side I think sometimes (probably more recently) people assume guys are shelved/out of the life very quickly. Pennisi also made clear that being shelved is a big deal and in essence if this was 50 years ago they would’ve killed you.

Take the discussion point recently about Carmine Agnello having a “crew” in Cleveland. It’s highly possible he’s been shelved but with the significance of what being shelved is, it is equally plausible he is inactive/relocated but still a member nonetheless. Sorry not to derail this thread into that topic also but wanted to use the example

[B.]

No, you make a great point. On one hand there are examples of guys who were shelved (often temporarily) which we would never assume from the outside, but there is also a tendency for people to assume people are shelved when there is no basis. And yes, being shelved is like a spiritual death to these guys.

Side note, but I saw an Instagram thread where people were speculating that the reason the Torregrossas were shelved in the 1960s was because they "went legit" by focusing too much on their funeral parlor. Utterly comical to imagine the mafia shelving someone for not being devoted enough to crime.