T-Shirt War: Verbal Bullets Fly In Mob Feud Between Revived Italian American Civil Rights League Lawyer And Sammy Bull Gravano
Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano says he wore it only a couple times, then quickly tossed it aside as inappropriate. But a simple T-shirt, emblazoned with "Bull 19," has added more fuel to a growing feud between a leader of Joe Colombo's revived Italian American Civil Rights League (IACRL) and the former right-hand-man-in-crime of Mafia boss John Gotti.
Criminal defense lawyer and IACRL vice president Gerard Marrone argues that the shirt which the turncoat Gambino underboss has worn stains his hands "with the blood" of his 19 murder victims. And that's a major factor in the group's push to convinve FX to cancel its plans to air an upcoming weekly series about Gravano's life, Gang Land has learned.
"Allowing him to profit and gain further notoriety from his crimes sends a dangerous message that violence, betrayal, and murder can be spun into entertainment and financial gain" and perpetuate "harmful stereotypes" about Italian Americans, says Marrone, whose clients have included members of the Gotti family.
In an angry reply, Gravano told Gang Land that Marrone and the IACRL "are hypocrites" who "don't care about the people that were killed." The Bull argues that "betrayal" is the key word in Marrone's statement. "They hate cooperating witnesses and made a big deal about a T-shirt I wore a couple of times in my life" in a news release "so they look like heroes" to the gangsters they're speaking for, he said.
"This guy is so full of shit," said Gravano. "The shirt I wore has nothing to do with the 19 murders. First of all, I had nothing to do with it. Somebody brought it out. I didn't like it. I put it on. I wore it a couple of times. It was on sale for a while. Then I realized it's not good. It's not representing what I thought it would represent, and I stopped selling it."
"(Marrone) calls himself a street lawyer, because he's a street guy," said Sammy Bull. "That's who he represents — street guys. He doesn't like people who cooperate. He wants to make a name for himself, and he wants to make money. Now he's got a YouTube channel called the Street Attorney. It's so obvious what he wants — to make money."
The Street Attorney podcast promotes itself as "raw, unfiltered, and inspiring." It features Marrone as a "defense attorney, entrepreneur, and a survivor" who overcame a crippling injury when he was "shot in the spine" when he stepped in front of his younger sister as someone shot at her in 1994, and who calls his perseverance in becoming a lawyer a "real life Bronx Tale."
The timing of the debut of Marrone's podcast suggests a linkage between it and the new civil rights league: It debuted on January 10, the day before the IACRL news release was sent out.
In a 10-year-old version, called The Street Attorney, Marrone promoted himself as a mob mouthpiece who defended "made guys and bosses" is a 12-minute video that was used to pitch a weekly TV show about him. "If they get locked up, I get them out," he said. "They trust me because I'm from the neighborhood. When someone here gets in a jam, they come to me. These are my people. I'm one of them, these streets are in my blood."
Gerard Marrone with client John Gotti Gravano said Marrone's interests are clear: "What else is he doing?" The Bull asked and answered. "He's representing guys who he wants back on the street. He takes pictures with John (Junior) Gotti's kids. He brags about representing the Gottis," Gravano said.
For his part, Marrone proudly boasts of his work and friendship with the Gotti family. Marrone represented Junior's wife Kimberly, and daughter Gianna, last year when they were charged with assaulting a woman at a high school basketball game in which Junior's son Joseph was playing. The lawyer got the charges dismissed on technical grounds later that year.
In 2016, Marrone defended Junior's nephew John, when he was arrested for drug dealing and cops seized a load of oxycodone pills that he had stored at his grandmother Victoria's home. John, 31, copped a plea deal, and served four years in state prison. Marrone also represented Gotti in 2017 when he was charged with arson, for which he copped a plea deal and received five years in prison.
Marrone told Gang Land that he and Junior Gotti are "friends," and that they see each other about once a week. The attorney concedes that Gotti "supports" and is "happy" that the IACRL seeks to stop FX from airing a weekly series about the government's star witness against his late father. But he insists that the erstwhile Junior Don, who is not an IACRL member, had "nothing" to do with the League's decision.
The attorney insists that the IACRL's push to cancel the show "has nothing to do with the fact that (Gravano) was an informer, that he's a rat. It has to do with the fact that he continues to open up these wounds" of his victims on his podcast and will soon be doing it on a "major television network."
Marrone shares office space in Middle Village, Queens, with Elio Forcina, a lawyer who defended Gotti's interests in a long-running legal dispute several years ago with turncoat gangster John Alite. Forcina is also an IACRL member who supports the League's decision, but not as an attorney for Gotti, Marrone said.
Also among the League's 300 dues-paying members is Roger Stone, the longtime pal of President Trump who was pardoned for his obstruction of justice conviction during The Donald's first term. Marrone said the league also has the full support of many family members of Gravano's victims.
"The families say, 'Enough is enough,'" said Marrone. "It's really outright disrespectful that these victims have to be victimized again by Sammy The Bull while he continues to profit from his violent crimes," he said. "He's made money, but his blog is kind of in the shadows. Now that he's going to a major network, he's coming out of the shadows and we're going to go after him."
"If he thinks he knows what I'm doing and what I'm thinking," Gravano wondered, "why doesn't he just come to me? And talk to me?" Instead, The Bull continued, "He says, 'Cancel a show because of a T shirt I wore a couple of times in my life.' That's a joke."
"He's part of a team that wants to hammer you, and call you names" if you're a cooperating witness, Gravano said. "The people he represents, they're a disgrace to Italian people," he continued. "He admits. 'I'm a street guy. I help guys get out of prison.' So if you help John Gotti get out of prison who killed 13 guys, that makes you happy. Somebody who cooperates and helps the government, you're mad. 'Cause you're mister good guy. Hypocrite."
"And what about freedom of the press," Gravano said. "And freedom of speech. I'm fed up with these people. These hypocrites. If you shut everybody down, and you get everybody to shut up, how would you know anything about how the Mafia runs?" The Bull continued. "How would you know how people think. Freedom of speech is an amazing fucking thing. This guy is against that. But he's against that in one spot. Me. This is a one way thing against one person. Me."
Gravano asserted that Marrone and the IACRL probably know that "they're not going to be able to stop" (FX from airing the series) but push to block the Sammy The Bull show makes them "look like heroes" and is a "personal gain" for them.
"I grew up on the same streets as Gravano, me in Queens and him in Brooklyn," said Marrone, "and I come at this not only as a lawyer representing relatives of Sammy The Bull murder victims who are victimized over and over again, but also as a crime victim who was shot in the back."
Marrone says the League is close to hiring a civil law firm to file a Son of Sam lawsuit to freeze any profits that the turncoat wiseguy makes from his crimes and distribute them to the relatives of Gravano's victims. In the meantime, the lawyer had a few thoughts he wanted to share with The Bull.
"I think Sammy should focus on positive things in his podcast and use his vast platform to inspire and motivate people to do good instead of always talking about his crimes and the 19 people that he killed," said Marrone. "Behind those 19 victims," the lawyer said, "are hundreds of relatives and friends who constantly suffer every time the killings of their loved ones are brought up and open up the pain of that loss again. That's not fair; it's not right."
"Quoting a guy like him, who represents wiseguys," said Gravano, "is a joke. It's so hypocritical, everything he's doing. Why me? Why doesn't he go after all the other people out there, all the mob movies and shows that keep coming out."
He's Still Behind Bars But Feds Say Luchese Gangster Is Still A Threat To Commit Crime
For Luchese associate Joseph Cutaia the good news is that he has recovered from spinal surgery after a back injury suffered in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The bad news — and there's more where that came from — is that the feds have squashed any hopes he had of a sweet plea deal and a quick release for his drug and alcohol-related violations of his supervised release (VOSR), Gang Land has learned.
The Probation Department had already charged Cutaia with 13 VOSRs in three separate states after his arrest in Indiana by the La Porte County Sherrif's office last June. Then they hit him with six added violations. And there was more: Last month, he was indicted on six counts of extortion related charges that began even before he won an early release from prison in December of 2023.
So, in addition to a possible return to prison for two more years for the VOSRs, Cutaia now faces up to 20 years in prison. That threat stems from charges that he tried to shake down two Brooklyn businesses for more than $100,000 in payoffs in 2023 and 2024 via telephone and in-person threats of violence, according to filings in two Brooklyn Federal Court cases. The old one is before Judge Eric Vitaliano; the new one with Chief Judge Margo Brodie.
In a court filing, assistant U.S. attorneys Devon Lash and Kate Mathews note that prison bars aren't a foolproof method to protect society from the 46-year-old Luchese gangster.
According to the feds, Cutaia began scheming while he was still serving a 15 year sentence for several home invasion robberies when he used a "contraband cell phone" to demand money from one victim. He kept it up when he was released in late 2023, and he continued scheming after he was arrested and jailed again last year, the prosecutors wrote.
The prosecutors wrote that Cutaia, whose 20 year sentence was cut to 15 years in 2023 after a weapons conviction was thrown out, used "repeated threats of violence" in "numerous telephone calls, text messages and in-person visits" to his victims to secure extortion payments from the owners of two Brooklyn businesses.
On April 18 of last year, the prosecutors wrote, Cutaia told one extortion victim in calls and texts: "I will see you very soon," and "I don't care who's listening I'm going to put you under that building" and if "you want to make this go away send (an unnamed cohort) $10,000 and you will never hear from me again."
If his victim didn't send the money, the prosecutors stated, Cutaia texted a warning: "I promise you your going to see me real soon I don't let no one talk crazy to me not my family not my friends and definitely not you," and then added: "I'm not p(l)aying with you, I swear to god."
That same day, they wrote, "Cutaia arrived unannounced and gained entry to another commercial business in Brooklyn" and "demanded profits of nearly $100,000.” He allegedly threatened to harm the owner's workers if he didn't get the money or "if the employees contacted the police."
He then "forcibly stole luxury watches from" several victims, photographed the time pieces, and tried to sell them to "jewelers and other potential buyers" he contacted, they wrote. During the next few days, he "transported the stolen watches between New Jersey and New York" in an effort to sell them, according to cell-site location records and evidence from Cutaia's cell phone.
Even after he was arrested and jailed in June 2024, Cutaia "continued to demand extortionate payments from prison to his commissary account" through a cohort the prosecutors identified only as CC#1 in snippets of tape-recorded conversations they included in the filing they used to detain him without bail. They wrote that Cutaia was clearly telling his cohort to use threats to get money for him during the taped talk.
CUTAIA: All right listen, text (John Doe,) text him now!
CC#1: Wait, you fucking asshole. I can't (under)stand you. Ah, yeah, what, what do you want me to say?
CUTAIA: Not on your phone, on your son's phone you dummy!
CC#1: Joe, it doesn't matter, they have all of our fucking phones, they're watching everything, so, it doesn't matter.
CUTAIA: I don't give a fuck, text (John Doe) on your phone, tell him listen, . . . I'm on the phone with (Cutaia), he's in Indiana jail, you listening?
CC#1: Yes.
CUTAIA: You gotta send me 400 for commissary for him, right now. You gotta send it right now.
CC#1: Okay.
CUTAIA: If you can't send it right now, let me know, because, then ah, I think (a Luchese mobster) gonna come by the office tomorrow to come holler at you.
CC#1: Wait, say that again?
CUTAIA: Say if you can’t send the four right now, he can send (the mobster) to the office tomorrow to pick it up.
CC#1: Okay.
It's not clear from the prosecution's filings whether Cutaia's commissary account reflected a sudden deposit, but he definitely received confirmation that his jailhouse phone calls were monitored.
Gambling With A Side Dish Of Acai Berries: Entrepreneur Luchese Mobster To Plead Guilty To His Old-School Rackets
Three underlings in his lucrative bookmaking business got plea deals that could mean no jail time. But Gang Land expects that Luchese mobster Anthony Villani, a new wave wiseguy who owns a pair of Playa Bowl franchises that sell bowls of exotic fruits such as acai berries to health-minded customers, won't be so lucky.
Villani, who was photographed in 2020 meeting in an East Harlem park with acting family boss Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis and other goodfellas, will likely have to forfeit much more than the $300,000 that the trio agreed to give up from the profits they made working for Villani's old-world, but illegal gambling business.
Villani has company: Dennis Filizzola, 60, pleaded guilty this week to illegal gambling charges calling for up to six months in prison for working for Rhino Sports, an online operation with a wire room in Costa Rica from 2004 to 2020. Filizzola agreed to forfeit $137,750, which includes the $21,412 that the feds seized from him in December of 2020.
Anthony Villani and friendsJames (Quick) Coumoutsos, 61, pleaded guilty the same day to illegal gambling and money laundering charges with identical sentencing guidelines of zero-to-six months. He agreed to forfeit $57,307 of the money he earned. Quick and Filizzola are required to satisfy their entire debts a month before they are sentenced in April by Brooklyn Federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto.
Meanwhile, Michael (Platinum) Praino, 46, pleaded guilty to illegal gambling charges last week. He is required to forfeit $112,000 to the government, according to his plea agreement, which calls for a recommended prison term between six and 12 months.
Villani is the only one of the group who is charged with racketeering. The wiseguy is slated to plead guilty next week — after fellow defendant Louis (Tooch) Tucci Jr. cops a plea deal to illegal gambling — and close out the long-running case, which the parties indicated early on would be resolved without a trial.
That took a lot longer than anticipated, defense attorney James Monteleon told Gang Land, because of the very large forfeitures the government was seeking from some defendants in the case.
Villani's lawyers, and prosecutor Antoinette Rangel wouldn’t discuss it, but it's likely that his plea agreement will call for a recommended prison term in the range of three years and requitre him to forfeit in excess of $1 million, since the feds have already seized more than that from him in cash, and from his personal and business bank accounts.
The 59-year-old wiseguy is charged with heading a "large-scale" operation that employed "dozens of bookmakers" in the New York area and made "millions of dollars in profits" for the Luchese crime family. When he was arrested, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace stated that the Luchese wiseguy had earned more than $1 million a year for himself from 2004 to 2020.
It was Villani's bad luck to get caught on camera and captured by an FBI photog meeting with Big Mike DeSantis and four other Lucheses, including consigliere Andrew DeSimone, at the Jefferson Park on May 7, 2020.
Gangland January 23rd 2025
Moderator: Capos
Re: Gangland January 23rd 2025
Sammy projecting hard at the start of that quote of lies. He is so full of shit. What does the 19 represent if not the murders Sam? The number of times you lie in one breath?"This guy is so full of shit," said Gravano. "The shirt I wore has nothing to do with the 19 murders. First of all, I had nothing to do with it. Somebody brought it out. I didn't like it. I put it on. I wore it a couple of times. It was on sale for a while. Then I realized it's not good. It's not representing what I thought it would represent, and I stopped selling it."
Why the fuck are they putting resources in to anything about this washed up fool. Far more interesting stories to be told than a rehash of Sammy's lies.
Also Cutaia has to be the dumbest motherfucker and surely will never be made. He is just fuck up after fuck up.
That book they were running for the Luchese was a nice earner. Over $1 million a year for 16 years. Tidy earner and only 3 years in the can.
Thanks for posting.