Gangland January 2nd 2025

[JoePuzzles234]

Christmastime Court Filings From Wiseguys Are Like Letters To Santa Claus
Wiseguys and mob associates aligned with four of the five New York crime families awaiting trial made a flurry of court filings last month seeking a chance to celebrate the holidays with friends and family. They read a lot like letters to Santa Claus: We've been good, they wrote in letters to the judges in their cases, please help us finalize our plans for the Christmas holiday season. Here's a sampling of how they fared.

A Gambino capo was able to enjoy two Christmas holiday trips to the Jersey Shore. A Bonanno skipper celebrated Christmas and the New Year with his parents and in-laws. A Genovese bookmaker rung in the New Year with a gaggle of friends and relatives. And a Luchese bookie will be enjoying a ski vacation in Cortlandt New York starting tomorrow.

Like many New Yorkers, the mob tied quartet wanted to spend the Christmas holidays with their friends and loved ones. But unlike most of us, they had to get permission from a federal judge before making their plans because they're under indictment for one thing or another and they didn't want to make their situation with the law any worse than it is now.

And all things considered, they made out pretty well in their requests to the various Brooklyn Federal Court Judges who are presiding over their cases, in one case even prevailing over a pair of Grinch-like prosecutors who voiced their objections to the request of an ailing low-level bookmaker who copped a plea deal to illegal gambling and is awaiting his sentencing.

That's the case of Salvatore (Sal the Shoemaker) Rubino. He faces up to 10 months in prison for engaging in illegal gambling in his shoe repair store in Merrick but is eligible for a no-jail sentence. Rubino, 60, who suffers from diabetes, was forced to get a new job after his shoe repair business closed. He now works nights from 5PM to midnight at an animal hospital. He wanted his curfew eased so he could ring in the new year after his New Year's Eve shift ended on Tuesday night.

Rubino's probation officer said okay. But prosecutors Anna Karamigios and Sean Sherman said no way, according to two requests that Rubino's court-appointed attorney Walter Mack filed with Judge Eric Vitaliano on behalf of Sal The Shoemaker.

Mack noted that Rubino has been "gainfully employed" for more than two years and "wishes to spend whatever free time with his loved ones that may remain." He asked Vitaliano to extend Sal's New Year's Eve curfew for a modest 90 minutes so he could get home and "change into adequate clothing before going out to celebrate the New Year with his closest family."

The judge agreed and went one better. He eliminated the location monitoring plus the midnight curfew that Rubino has been living with for the past 28 months so he could ring in the New Year with his family members as long as they wanted to after he got home from work.

Vitaliano is also handling a companion case against the Bonanno family and received a request from capo Anthony (Little Anthony) Pipitone to leave his home to celebrate Christmas and the New Year at the homes of his parents and in-laws. Prosecutors Karamigios and Sherman took no position this time, deferring to that of the pre-trial services, which okayed the request. Vitaliano, clearly a believer in the Christmas spirit, again signed off,

So did Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in approving a request by Luchese bookmaker Michael (Platinum) Praino to travel from his Bronx home to upstate New York tomorrow. Praino wants to enjoy a three-day ski vacation in Cortlandt NY and promised that he will be back in town in plenty of time for the next court appearance in his case on January 9.

Gambino skipper Joseph (Joe Brooklyn) Lanni also received the necessary judicial approval he needed from Judge Frederic Block to enjoy two trips from his Staten Island home to the one he has in Toms River during the Christmas holiday week, including one on New Year's Day.

Lanni's prosecutors, Andrew Roddin, Matthew Galeotti and Karamigios, were okay with Joe Brooklyn's Christmas holiday week requests. But they, and pretrial services, objected strongly to him accepting a job offer with Pro Steel Services, a Brooklyn-based steel fabricator that would require him to work in the firm's Sunset Park office five days a week from 9AM to 5PM.

During a telephonic court session last week, Block indicated from the outset that he didn't see any problem with the job offer. He stated that it seemed like a "fairly innocuous application" to him and asked prosecutor Roddin and pretrial services officer, Tara Sarnelli, "Why is it a big deal?"

They argued that since Lanni, who is the lead defendant in a racketeering indictment, would be using his laptop and cell phone, which the government monitors, to arrange meetings between potential customers and the company, they saw no reason why Lanni couldn't work from home instead of traveling to Pro Steel's offices each day.

Lanni's attorneys Michael Bachrach and Frederick Sosinsky countered that the job offer that their client received from Pro Steel owner Craig Beck required Joe Brooklyn to work at the office, as all Beck's employees do. They added that Beck had written a letter explaining what Lanni's duties would be, and that the feds hadn't taken him up on his offer to answer any questions they might have about the position.

In a brief letter, Beck wrote that he is the principal owner of Pro Steel, which also has an office in Rutherford, NJ, operates in all five boroughs, Long Island and New Jersey, and that Lanni's "duties would include making sales calls and setting up meetings for potential business." Beck indicated that he was well aware that Lanni was under indictment. While working he "would use his own computer to stay in line with his bail conditions," Beck wrote.

Block said he did "not see any harm" in granting the application "especially during the holiday season" and stated that he was going to grant the application "based on the representations made by Lanni's attorneys" about the Pro Steel job offer, and wished everyone a Happy New Year before ending the session.

"Lanni will start working," the judge stated in a brief order, "after defense counsel provide a letter to his Pre-Trial Services Officer from his employer confirming a start date for his employment."

Block's decision made it four for four for this handful of Gang Land residents. The new year may well be a lot tougher for Joe Brooklyn, Sal the Shoemaker and the others, but in the meantime it was Auld Acquaintance Should Be Forgot and Never Brought to Mind.

Wiseguy Guilty in $5M Ripoff Of Builders Of Manhattan Hotels & High-Rises
Genovese soldier Christopher Chierchio, a key player in an eight-year long $5 million bid-rigging and kickback scheme by two dozen contractors has pleaded guilty to grand larceny charges calling for a sentence of up to three years in prison, Gang Land has learned.

The scheme preyed on major developers who built dozens of Manhattan high-rise apartments and hotels. On paper, Chierchio's guilty plea, the first by a major defendant in the two-year-old case, is a good stat for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office. But in point of fact, it's an outstanding plea bargain for the 56-year-old mobster.

That's because the plea deal that his attorney Thomas Harvey worked out with Bragg's office calls for Chierchio's one and half to three-year prison term to be served concurrently with the five year federal prison term he received for his involvement in the $100 million ripoff of three Lottery Winners in 2019 and 2020.

So for all intents and purposes, the prison term that Supreme Court Justice Miriam Best metes out on January 9, will not mean a single extra day behind bars for the veteran wiseguy. Chierchio is currently cooling his heels at the federal prison in Danbury. His mandatory release date is August 25, 2027.

According to court filings, Chierchio's Staten Island plumbing company, RCI PLBG Inc., obtained over $13 Million in subcontracts and change orders on four construction projects that were referred to him by mob associate Robert (Rusty) Baselice, the accused ringleader of the scheme. The filings say the wiseguy also stole $300,000 from a developer during the scheme.

Baselice, a former vice president of the Rinaldi Group, a Secaucus-based construction firm, received $4.2 million in kickbacks in return for $100 million in contracts he gave to favored subcontractors, according to the filings.

During the scheme, which ran from 2013 to 2021, Baselice and Chierchio also worked closely with Staten Island based Gambino capo Frank Camuso and two indicted members of his crew, soldier Louis Astuto and associate Paul Noto. All five defendants were tape recorded allegedly discussing their roles in the scheme, according to the court filings.

In return for the work Baselice gave RCI, often at inflated prices, Chierchio funneled $175,000 in kickbacks to Baselice. All told, Baselice received $4.2 million in kickbacks from contractors he favored. Camuso's crew members, Astuto and Noto, received $2.8 million in kickbacks, with at least $750,000 being funneled to Camuso through companies that were owned by him or his family members.

Chierchio's company, RCI PLBG Inc., also pleaded guilty to grand larceny, and will be sentenced to an unconditional discharge.

Joseph Perry, the attorney for a Mount Vernon concrete subcontractor named Kieran Keaveney, also worked out a sweet plea deal with Bragg's office to resolve all the charges that his client faced. Keaveney, 53, and his company, ECI Contracting, LLC, allegedly received $12 Million in subcontracts and change orders from Baselice, and stole more than $800,000 from three developers, and paid more than $1 million in kickbacks to Baselice

Keaveney and ECI each pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and were sentenced to conditional discharges. ECI paid $25,000 in restitution.

The next scheduled court date for Camuso, Astuto, Noto and Baselice is January 16, when Judge Best is expected to decide the pending pretrial motions to dismiss various charges and to suppress many of the tape recordings that allegedly tie the defendants to the grand larceny, bid rigging, money laundering and other charges in the 83 count indictment.

The four defendants are not in any hurry to settle their cases, or take them to trial, since they are not remanded. And unlike the mob-tied defendants in the federal cases, Camuso & Company were able to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays with friends and family without having to seek permission from a judge.

The Grim Reaper Was Busy in 2024
The Grim Reaper was an equal opportunity menace last year. He summoned a dozen bold faced Gang Land stalwarts, including wiseguys from all Five Families, as well as a G-man worth his weight in gold to the FBI, along with a colorful and canny barrister who was the only lawyer to win an acquittal in the Westies racketeering and murder trial.

Two of the Grim Reaper's victims were behind bars when he called: Mark Reiter, 76, the drug dealing pal of John Gotti whose death we detailed last week, was locked up in a Bureau of Prisons hospital in Ayer, Mass.; Vincent (Vinny Unions) Ricciardo, 78, the Colombo capo who orchestrated the crime family's 20-year-long shakedown of the president of a construction workers union was in the federal prison hospital at Butner, N.C..

Three Genovese family members, including Dominick (Quiet Dom) Cirillo, 94, the onetime acting boss for the legendary Vincent (Chin) Gigante, checked out last year. Like Stephen (Stevie) Gallo, 74, the nephew of Colombo family rebel Joseph (Crazy Joe) Gallo, so-called natural causes felled Quiet Dom. A truck killed Anthony (Tony Cakes) Conigliaro, 86, as he crossed a street a block away from his home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

The deadly stalker also called out two Luchese wiseguys, both of them former consiglieres for their crime family. He also snagged a pair of onetime Administration members of the Gambino family who were close pals of the late Dapper Don.

The Lucheses were Joseph (Big Joe) DiNapoli, 89, who survived an extra-heavy 52-month sentence for gambling and loansharking he began at age 84, and Joseph (Joe C) Caridi, 76, who was dubbed the crime family's Tony Soprano two decades ago when he was charged with running his Long Island based crew out of a Brentwood LI strip club.

The Gambinos were John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico, and Joseph (JoJo) Corozzo. The duo were both hit with racketeering charges in a 62-defendant case in 2008. D'Amico, 87, was Gotti's beard and appointments secretary during his heyday and later served as the family's acting boss. Corozzo, 82, was Gotti's bodyguard-chauffer for a while, and later served as the crime family's consigliere.

The Grim Reaper actually called Frank (Big Frank) Coppa in October of 2023, the lone Bonanno wiseguy whose death Gang Land wrote about last year.

Coppa, 82, made a big splash back in 2002 when he was the first Bonanno wiseguy to break his vow of omerta. His decision led to many more family defectors, including the borgata's boss and underboss, Joseph Massino and Salvatore Vitale. But Coppa's death received no notice when he died 15 months ago, and for a long time, his death was an unconfirmed rumor.

But according to a death certificate obtained by The New York Times, Big Frank Coppa died of natural causes in Sarasota Florida on October 17, 2023.

The G-man with a long and honorable record was Gerard (Jerry) Conrad. An ex-FBI agent, Conrad, 62, was the supervisor of the Gambino family squad when he retired in 2014. An attorney and a CPA, Conrad worked as a consultant for the FBI on civil forfeitures until 2023, and was literally worth more than his weight in gold bullion to the Bureau, according to former FBI agent Phil Scala.

"I spoke to a few still working agents and they said Jerry was the number one forfeiture person in the entire FBI for fiscal year 2023, when he was suffering and dying from cancer," said Scala. "He was responsible for $3.5 billion in recoveries. And true to Jerry's humility, he personally never made mention of it."

Attorney Robert (Bobby) Blossner, who defended gangsters in several major 1980s trials and represented two acting bosses in this millennium, and was a quick-witted barrister who served as a mentor to younger lawyers over the years, according to Vic Pawar, his partner for 14 years.

Blossner, 82, made a dramatic courtroom move to get the jury's attention and win an acquittal for his client, John Halo, during his summation at the 1988 trial of Westies boss James Coonan and five underlings in the Irish-American gang who were charged with eight murders.

Blossner placed a chair atop the defense table, and sat there at eye level with jurors as he argued emphatically that the government's own ballistics evidence showed that it was physically impossible for Halo to have fired the fatal shot at the lone murder victim he was charged with killing from his seat in the car in which the pair were riding at the time.

Two decades later, in 2008, in a failed effort to win bail for D'Amico, who was accused of being the acting Gambino boss, Blossner argued that the prosecutor's refusal to cite any evidence to "indicate that he's the boss of anything," was a scary situation. It reminded him, he said, of an old Abbot & Costello movie, "where the sergeant says, 'You're nothing and I'm the sergeant. I'm the boss. You understand that?' And Costello says, 'Yes. You're the boss over nothing.'"

At the time, Blossner told Gang Land he was "distressed" by the similarity of the plight of Jackie Nose that day with the fate of Genovese mobster Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno following his conviction in the Commission trial.

"Twenty years ago," he said, "I heard a federal judge sentence another gambler to 100 years in prison and hope that he never got out of prison because he was the boss of a crime family. Well, Judge (Richard) Owen got his wish. Fat Tony died in prison. And then the government said, 'Oops. Sorry about that. Fat Tony wasn't really the boss. Some other guy named Chin was the real boss.'"

Judge Jack Weinstein ordered D'Amico's release a few months later, but before that could happen, Jackie Nose pleaded guilty to extortion, a violent crime, and he remained behind bars until he completed his sentence.

[Pmac2]

ty was the post. idc Jerry still and always will be the best

[SonnyBlackstein]

Keep forgetting quiet Dom is gone.

Legit one of the few last OG. And I HATE that term.

[moneyman]

Inflating invoices - the mob’s bread and butter

[Newyorkempire]

Keep forgetting quiet Dom is gone.

Legit one of the few last OG. And I HATE that term.

Really profound statement. Thank you for keeping us in the loop as if anyone cares about what you don't like. Joke

[Tonyd621]

The pen is mighter then the sword in Chierchios lawyers case. The deal of a lifetime and all that money. Call me insane, but I'll take all that money he made and the jail time.

[Amershire_Ed]

Seems like a lot of Westside cases have a few things in common: little to no violence, a decent amount of money, and fairly short prison sentences.

[CabriniGreen]

Inflating invoices - the mob’s bread and butter

Arguably Sicily's top money maker right now...

[Tonyd621]

Seems like a lot of Westside cases have a few things in common: little to no violence, a decent amount of money, and fairly short prison sentences.

Yeah, man I have noticed that too. All these Westside cases got guys doing prison time 3,4,5 years. Nothing in the double digits, rarely.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Seems like a lot of Westside cases have a few things in common: little to no violence, a decent amount of money, and fairly short prison sentences.

Yeah, man I have noticed that too. All these Westside cases got guys doing prison time 3,4,5 years. Nothing in the double digits, rarely.

No bodies no drugs.
Helps.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Inflating invoices - the mob’s bread and butter

Arguably Sicily's top money maker right now...

Yeah if you forget the drugs drugs drugs

[CabriniGreen]

Inflating invoices - the mob’s bread and butter

Arguably Sicily's top money maker right now...

Yeah if you forget the drugs drugs drugs

Ok.....second....

[Newyorkempire]

Inflating invoices - the mob’s bread and butter

Arguably Sicily's top money maker right now...

Yeah if you forget the drugs drugs drugs

Make sure you say the same word three times, it helps us know you have no insight about anything other than tourette syndrome.

[Tonyd621]

Seems like a lot of Westside cases have a few things in common: little to no violence, a decent amount of money, and fairly short prison sentences.

Yeah, man I have noticed that too. All these Westside cases got guys doing prison time 3,4,5 years. Nothing in the double digits, rarely.

No bodies no drugs.
Helps.

Except for the recent Balsamo case. It seems like everyone was doing or dealing a little bit of blow in that case.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Make sure you say the same word three times, it helps us know you have no insight about anything other than tourette syndrome.

You've gotta stop trying so hard when I fuck with you.

It's getting to easy to get you upset. You're taking the fun out of it.