Gangland May 8th 2025

[Dr031718]

Bonanno Wiseguy Teamed With Long Island Mortgage Banker In Loanshark Scam

Veteran Bonanno wiseguy Anthony Frascone received top billing when Nassau County prosecutors filed state usury charges against him last November. But the main loanshark in the case, Gang Land has learned, was a licensed loan officer for a Melville-based mortgage bank approved to make loans in 40 states.

Frascone's underling Anthony Pellegrino was toiling for the East Coast Capital Corporation back in August of 2021 when he loaned $20,000 to a borrower identified as "Steve" for "three points a week" in interest, according to a usury indictment the Nassau County District Attorney's office obtained against the duo after a 14-month investigation.

Until his arrest, Pellegrino, 60, was one of about 200 so-called "mortgage loan originators" for the mortgage bank boasting "of over 14 branch locations throughout the United States" and "a wide range of loan products that suit every borrower's needs," according to the East Coast Capital website.

The "three points a week" loan, which equates to 156% interest a year, is a major C felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison under state law making it illegal to charge more than 25% interest on a loan.

During three meetings Pellegrino held with his loanshark customer before and after New Year's Day of 2024, according to the three-count conspiracy indictment against the duo, Steve said he needed more cash. Pellegrino turned down three requests to bump up his loan, first to $30,000 and then to $25,000.

Even so, Frascone, 76, and Pellegrino collected $600 a week in interest from Steve for nearly three years, according to the indictment. It quotes Pellegrino with telling Frascone at an office complex in Commack on February 7, 2024 that he was "collecting eighteen hundred" the following day from "the guy that I have the loan with."

Two months later, on April 8, when Pellegrino told his mob supervisor that "Steve" was still "paying twelve hundred every two weeks on (the) twenty (thousand)," Frascone "instructed" Pellegrino that he might be "better off" if he "made it a knockdown (loan)" to "avoid losing the money" that he had loaned Steve, the indictment states.

The indictment, obtained with info DA investigators gathered through wiretaps and video surveillance, is silent on whether Pellegrino followed his mob supervisor's advice between then and their November 7 arrest.

Savvy loansharks — sources say that Frascone qualifies as one — will often rework "juice" only loans to "knockdown loans" that turn interest payments into reductions of the principal. The goal is to dissuade customers who have been bled dry, or close to it, from running away — or worse, flipping when they have paid back three or four times the cash they received as Steve did.

Prosecutor Kelsey Lorer, and lawyers for the duo, declined to comment. Officials of East Coast Capital contacted by Gang Land, including its founder and CEO Seth Fass, did not respond to calls regarding the current status of Pellegrino with the company. Sources say he's a retired science teacher who worked for the firm for several years until his arrest.

Pellegrino and Frascone were also charged with running what the DA's office called a "sophisticated online sports betting operation" that raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. In a news release, the DA's office described Frascone as "the alleged leader of the outfit" who dutifully "shared" profits with unnamed "associates in the Bronx" — namely Bonanno family boss Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso.

The DA's news release did not disclose the total take by the bookmaking operation, but it did note that one gambler owed the Two Anthonys more than $150,000 when the defendants were arrested.

Frascone was the overall supervisor of the bookmaking venture, and he kept records of the accounts of the gamblers set up by Pellegrino, the release stated. Three runners serviced the gamblers: former NYPD cop Joseph Pietaro, 57, of West Islip, Frank LoNigro, 51, of Merrick, and Philip Carucci, 59, of Levittown. They paid the gamblers when they won and collected from them when they lost.

Frascone is a longtime member of the crime family's Bronx faction. His most recent troubles with the law before this arrest — for extorting payments from the owners of four strip clubs in Queens and Long Island in exchange for "protection" from competing jiggle joints and other organized crime figures — earned him a 33-month federal prison stretch that ended in 2016.

Back in 2005, Frascone was sentenced to a year and a day behind bars for illegal gambling charges included in the same racketeering indictment where late Bonanno boss Joseph Massino and former acting boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano were charged and convicted of murder.

Frascone did much better with this bookmaking-loansharking indictment than he did with the 20-year-old gambling case lodged by the feds.

He pleaded guilty two weeks ago to felony charges of promoting gambling, as well as usury, in a deal that Valerie Casali of Richman Hill & Associates worked out with ADA Lorer. The agreement calls for Frascone to receive three years probation and forfeit $15,000 at his sentencing next month by Supreme Court Justice Robert Schwartz.

The charges are still pending against Pellegrino and the runners, with status conference appearances scheduled before Schwartz next month.

Drug Dealer Freed From Prison By President Trump Faces New Legal Woes

Federal prosecutors, stung by the refusal of a key witness to testify about an assault on his three-year-old son by a drug-dealing mob associate, have upped the ante in their effort to keep the defendant whose sentence was commuted by President Trump behind bars, Gang Land has learned.

The feds filed additional VOSR (violation of supervised release) charges against Jonathan Braun with Brooklyn Federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, who ordered the defendant — detained since April 4 — to inform the court by tomorrow whether he wants a full-blown hearing on the new allegations. The specific charges, lodged against the 41-year-old mob associate last weekend, were not publicly filed.

Braun will be arraigned on the new allegations next week "prior to the continuation of his VOSR hearing" for the seven original charges that were filed against him on April 4. They include the assault on a three-year-old boy whose father has stated that he doesn’t want to testify.

But Judge Matsumoto has ordered prosecutors to get him to court when the hearing resumes on May 15.

The judge said so on day two of Braun's hearing on the original VOSR after learning from defense lawyer Kathryn Wozencroft that the boy's father, identified only as Shammai, had told the government that he would "not testify or comment." The judge stated that he was an "important witness" and she wanted to hear from him.

Shammai's stated allegations to police that Braun had punched him "in the face" and then shoved him and his young son "to the ground," leaving a "red mark on (the boy's) back and causing substantial pain to his back" were what allowed Nassau County prosecutors to arrest Braun on assault charges. The feds had planned to have him testify at Braun's detention hearing.

Braun is also accused of groping his former live-in nanny and terrifying her, menacing a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in Oceanside and threatening a man who was praying too loud to suit Braun during a Sabbath service.

On a lesser note, he also faces petty larceny charges involving the theft of $160 in Atlantic Beach Bridge tolls last year.

It's unclear whether prosecutors Rachel Bennek and Tanya Hajjar will get Shammai to court next week, and if they do, what he will say. And it's also unclear whether the new VOSR charges stem from alleged wrongdoing during the same time frame as the original batch — between last summer and March 29 — or closer to January of 2021, when his supervised release began.

Judge Masumoto, who raised the issue of whether Braun was entitled to be represented by a court appointed federal defender at his initial proceeding and ordered him to complete and submit a financial report to the Court, again questioned whether the defendant qualified for the free legal advocacy he was enjoying.

The judge didn't mention that the scene of the alleged assault of the three-year-old boy was his two-story 18-room home in Lawrence that was built in 2020 and has a market value of $5,989,000, according to Property Shark, an online real estate database.

But she questioned the "signed financial statement" that Braun had submitted, stating that she believed he was employed although he said he wasn’t because he was "incarcerated."

When Braun stated, "Correct," Matsumoto noted that her "point" was that "federal defenders" were authorized to "represent indigent people who can't otherwise afford an attorney" and she questioned whether he had filed a "complete affidavit."

She said he claimed "not to own any vehicles" but had been seen in videos "driving luxury vehicles" over the Atlantic Beach Bridge.

"For purposes of this hearing," the judge said, "I will allow you to be represented by federal defenders.” But, she continued, he should be "careful" about his responses since his affidavit was submitted "under penalty of perjury."

"My understanding," said lawyer Wozencroft, "is that there are no vehicles or home or property" in her client's name and that "when someone is interviewed by pretrial services," they are asked, "What property title is in your name?"

Matsumoto then turned to the pretrial services officer, Heather Clark, and said: "Would you tell me, didn't he indicate that he is working?"

It took a few questions and answers, but after Clark replied that Braun had informed her that he earned a total of $2000 from January 1 until his arrest, but that she would have to check on whether he submitted any pay stubs, Matsumoto stated she did "not want to waste any more time" on that issue.

"Federal defenders are really supposed to be here for people who can't afford an attorney,” she said, “and I'll leave it at that for now."

At the end of the day, Gang Land has no idea whether the feds will be able to convince Matsumoto to detain Braun and send him back to federal prison for up to five years, which is what they have been trying to get the Judge to do for the last month.

But Matsumoto will be hard pressed to deny Braun the use of federal defender Wozencroft.

Like many wiseguys and mob associates, he seems to have nothing in his name — the Lawence home is owned by his wife. And he owes $16.9 million in fines to the Federal Trade Commission and $3.5 million to Merchant Cash Advance customers he swindled between 2015 and 2019, when he was a business partner of Gambino mobster Robert Giardina.

NYPD Seeks Help Getting Justice For Murdered Blackjack Dealer — 26 Years Later

The NYPD is seeking the help of current and former New Yorkers in solving the baffling cold case killing of Jeffrey Blackman, a mob-connected blackjack dealer found nude, bound and strangled in the trunk of his Buick sedan a full 26 years ago last month.

The badly decomposed body of Blackman, 42, was found inside the car left parked outside 70-89 Park Drive East at 5 AM in Kew Gardens Hills on Tuesday April 20, 1999 – seven weeks after he disappeared following an all-night card game at the Glendale Social Club on 76th Avenue.

Sources told Gang Land back then that Blackman was last seen alive behind the wheel of his 1990 Buick Century, at 68th Street and Myrtle Avenue in Glendale at about 5:30 AM on February 28, 1999.

Cops ask anyone with information about the killing to either call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or submit the info by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/. Police say either option allows you to do so anonymously.

Police say they will not ask for your name, record your voice or trace your phone number if you call, or trace down callers who submit their tips online. And you will not have to make an official statement or appear in court if the tip leads to an arrest.

Callers can receive up to $3500 if their info leads to an indictment.

Blackman, a former transit worker who lived on Talbot Street in Kew Gardens, about two miles from where his remains were found, was an associate of up and coming Gambino gangster Bartolomeo (Bobby Glasses) Vernace, sources said, and worked as a dealer at card games run by Vernace.

Back then, as Gang Land reported, detectives theorized the killers may have wrongly suspected that Blackman was an informant whose tip led to Vernace's arrest in the fall of 1998 by cold case detective Thomas Mansfield for the April 11, 1981 barroom slayings of Richard Godkin and John D'Agnese at the Shamrock Bar in Woodhaven.

Vernace, whose nickname in the 1980s, Pepe, helped Mansfield identify and arrest him, was acquitted of state murder charges in the senseless killings of the bar owners over a spilled drink in 2001 when potential witnesses, including patrons and the bartender, declined to finger him at trial.

In 2013, when Bobby Glasses was a family capo and a full 32 years after Godkin and D'Agnese were killed, the feds got a modicum of justice for their families when Vernace was found guilty of racketeering and murder charges for firing the fatal shots at trial in Brooklyn Federal Court and sentenced to life in prison.

Vernace was detained when he was charged with the murders on Mafia Takedown Day in January of 2011, when the FBI arrested 127 wiseguys and mob associates from seven crime families for a litany of crimes. He suffered a heart attack and died behind bars in 2017.

The NYPD hopes that 26 years later, with some help from the public, they can get a modicum of justice for Jeffrey Blackman.

[Ivan]

Never heard of this knockdown loans thing before. Is it a recent innovation by mob loan sharks?

[Wiseguy]

Never heard of this knockdown loans thing before. Is it a recent innovation by mob loan sharks?

No, it's been around forever.

[NickyEyes1]

Never heard of this knockdown loans thing before. Is it a recent innovation by mob loan sharks?

If a guy owed you 10k and he pays you 5k, now he owes you 5k. That's all it is. Some of these guys require to pay in full or continue paying juice. Which sounds like asking for problems imo.

[Ivan]

Never heard of this knockdown loans thing before. Is it a recent innovation by mob loan sharks?

If a guy owed you 10k and he pays you 5k, now he owes you 5k. That's all it is. Some of these guys require to pay in full or continue paying juice. Which sounds like asking for problems imo.

So they idea is to get as much as you can in extortionate interest rates for say a year or two, and then switch to paying off the principal after enjoying that initial profit, right? That seems like a lot less potentially explosive than keeping a guy on the hook forever and letting resentment build.

Loan someone $10K, let them pay $10K in interest for a year or so, then have them pay off the principal gradually. $10K profit with a lot less bad blood developing. Smart.

Thanks, I'd somehow never heard of this before. I was under the impression that if you had a loan from a loanshark, you always had to pay the same two points weekly (or whatever it's set at) no matter how much of the principal is paid off.

[NorthBuffalo]

Never heard of this knockdown loans thing before. Is it a recent innovation by mob loan sharks?

If a guy owed you 10k and he pays you 5k, now he owes you 5k. That's all it is. Some of these guys require to pay in full or continue paying juice. Which sounds like asking for problems imo.

So they idea is to get as much as you can in extortionate interest rates for say a year or two, and then switch to paying off the principal after enjoying that initial profit, right? That seems like a lot less potentially explosive than keeping a guy on the hook forever and letting resentment build.

Loan someone $10K, let them pay $10K in interest for a year or so, then have them pay off the principal gradually. $10K profit with a lot less bad blood developing. Smart.

Thanks, I'd somehow never heard of this before. I was under the impression that if you had a loan from a loanshark, you always had to pay the same two points weekly (or whatever it's set at) no matter how much of the principal is paid off.

That's exactly it - they let you off the hook eventually bc that's how you keep a business going, your reputation in the neighborhood and stay out of jail. I knew a few guys in the 1980s who borrowed money 'on the street' and honestly they all paid back and moved on. No legs broken, etc. I think the juice loan business in these close-knit neighborhoods only worked if some people actually benefitted from the loans. I know the loan sharks who hung around the Locals or were in the Locals all used knock down loans - the guys who get fucked and beat up/legs broken are the guys who keep borrowing and gambling or doing drugs.

[Tonyd621]

Who would be associated with Vernace that would have reason to worry? I mean a murder that long ago, somebody had to mention it to someone in LE for them to put it out there, No?

[Tonyd621]

How dare Frascone have an account for gambling set up!
You will be arrested and told to go to one of the brick and mortar store sportsbook or register an account online at one of those sportsbooks! Sarcasm

[Pmac2]

thanks for posting. gangland sometimes repetitive still the best in the land and no one comes close

[SonnyBlackstein]

'Ohhhhh! A Bra-oooon!'
"It's a Braun baby"

Always hear that dumb tarts idiot mispronounciation when I see that word.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Shoutout to Scootch, the feds called Frascone's op.... an outfit!!!

[AntComello]

Knockdown loans make sense. Bleed em dry get as much as you can then let them off the hook before they run to the law. Smart move especially these days when people rat left and right

[Pmac2]

Wonder if this pellegrino was a mix up and the internet mob guys started the petey pasta pellegrino shit....

[johnny_scootch]

Shoutout to Scootch, the feds called Frascone's op.... an outfit!!!

Hopefully no one confuses Frascone for the new Boss of Chicago hah

[SonnyBlackstein]

Hopefully no one confuses Frascone for the new Boss of Chicago hah

Frascone the Bonannos liaison with Chi-town.