Gangland:6/2/16

[Dellacroce]

Alite: I Got The Okay To Work With Another Murderous Gangster When I Got Out Of Prison

John Alite, the former drug-dealer and murderer who became a key witness against his old pal, mob scion John A. (Junior) Gotti, swears he's out of the gangster business these days. But that doesn't mean he's not still courting trouble.

On the home front, Alite is involved in a major family feud with his brother James who has filed a $2 million lawsuit against him claiming that his brother stiffed him on monies they earned while working together before and after John got out of the can.

Then there's John's recent stint as a construction site bodyguard on behalf of a fellow mob snitch who was worried that he might run into trouble with friends of the Genovese family mobsters he fingered for murders. After all, just because he's resigned from the mob doesn't mean he can't still walk the walk, according to Alite.

First the lawsuit:

In lengthy conversations with Gang Land that often sounded more like family therapy sessions than crime talk, the Alite brothers professed both love and anger for each other. As James, 54, tells it, the rift occurred after John, 53, refused to pay off on "business services" James provided both while his younger brother was in prison and after he got out in 2012.

They had no signed contract, said James, but they agreed to become "50-50 business partners" when his brother was behind bars and fearful about the future. James said he agreed to "help John plan his return into society. I was on the phone three hours a day. I spoke to authors, publishers, and producers" of traditional and online media outlets "about personal appearances," James said.

The brothers also "built up a construction business" in which they partnered with another mob stool pigeon, John (Johnny Balls) Leto (that's where the bodyguard gig comes in). Before his 2004 arrest for drug trafficking, Leto had run a New Jersey company called Standup Construction. Together, eight years later, Leto and the Alite brothers served as agents for a South Jersey contractor who agreed to pay them for work they sent his their way, said James. The contractor paid them $240,000, James said, but brother John kept it all.

The suit, filed by attorney Elio Forcina, puts the dollar figure on the construction business at $140,000, and seeks half of that, $70,000, as James Alite's end, but that could change, Forcina told Gang Land, once he gets documents he hopes to receive during the discovery process.

"I helped build up his confidence, and once things started falling into place and were going in the right direction, that's when he decided he didn't need his brother and started cutting me loose," said James.

John scoffed at his brother's claims.

"It's ridiculous," said Alite, whose lawyer-agent has refused to accept service of his brother's lawsuit. "He's no different than Lou Costello. It's like me telling you, 'You owe me half the money you made this year because I spoke to you.' It's totally ridiculous. Do I take it seriously? Obviously not."

Alite, who advertises himself as a "motivational speaker" against his old lifestyle and whose website describes him as a "real-life Jason Bourne," the fictional CIA assassin created by Robert Ludlum and played by Matt Damon on the big screen, says that his old buddy Junior Gotti is behind his brother's lawsuit.

"This all started with Gotti's brain," said Alite. "This is just Junior instigating him. This isn't my brother. He doesn't talk like this. Gotti's manipulating him. That's what he does, he plays the drums and now he's got a hold of my brother. If he had any kind of a relationship with him, he would have called him in one of his cases. If my brother had a relationship with anybody on the street, including me, the government would have called him in. But they didn't."

Alite says he loves his brother and doesn't want to embarrass him but believes that James has gone along with Gotti's prodding because he "wants the attention. He never had any. This is really all he wants. I don't think he cares about anything but getting a little attention. He's getting his wish come true."

Meanwhile, there's that bodyguard stint. It began in 2012 and lasted for several months, said Alite, after he and Johnny Balls were both released from a special federal prison unit for cooperating witnesses.

Leto, who testified against Genovese capos Angelo Prisco and Anthony (Tony D) Palumbo, was worried about running into associates of the crime family on the jobsite, according to Alite.

The dealings with Leto, Alite says, were all above board and had nothing to do with any business deal with his brother. He said he had dutifully reported the work to the official who was monitoring his five years of post-prison supervised release, which still has several months to run, according to court records.

Like his brother James, Alite told Gang Land that at the time, Leto was working in some capacity for LeFrak, the huge family-owned property and real estate development company that was founded by Aaron LeFrak in 1905 and made famous by his grandson Samuel in the 1960s when he built Lefrak City, the apartment complex in central Queens that is home to 15,000 residents.

He hooked up with Johnny Balls Leto, and worked at job sites with, and for him, in Jersey City, Queens and The Bronx, after he ran into a "guy named Chris" who was working for Leto "when I was looking for work," and they exchanged phone numbers, and Leto contacted him, said Alite.

"Leto was scared to go to the jobsite alone," said Alite. "He asked me if I would go with him and oversee the job (Alite thinks the first one was in Jersey City) because he was afraid, worried about someone hurting him because of his situation. One time he told me they killed a rat and put it on his front porch. That's why he hired me."

Alite said that on one job, Leto recognized a made guy in the Genovese family who was "doing a job for a big builder connected with the West Side and he sent me. They were the guys he was with when he was in the street. So I went to the job site. You know my personality, I'm out there," said Alite, who rejected a new identity in the federal Witness Security Program.

"And I'm not a big construction guy," continued Alite. "I don't really know shit. So I'm just walking around looking for things they're telling me to look for. Looking at window casements, or the guys working on the elevator, and deliveries coming in. I went there for work, regular work, like anybody else. I was a worker. I was getting paid a salary. I wasn't involved in Leto's business."

"And I brought it to my parole officer," said Alite, who related his conversation on the subject:
"'Can I be on the same job as John Leto? He's working for LeFrak and I'm working for LeFrak.' 'Do you have anything to do with the guy?'
'No.'
'Do you see him off the job?'
'No.'
'Okay, no big deal.'"

Leto, who admitted killing a mob associate for the Genovese family in 1992, was released from prison in late 2011 and was also on supervised release at the time. He could not be reached. His attorney, Paul Prezutti, said he was not privy to Leto's post-prison activities but told Gang Land that his former client had no issues with the law during three years of supervised release. A LeFrak spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday because she was unable to confirm any involvement that Leto may have had with the company.

Alite's assertions about the permission he received to work with a fellow drug-dealing gangster from Queens could not be confirmed since the Probation Department, which handles post-prison supervised release, does not discuss its dealings with the ex-cons it supervises.

But one attorney was aghast at the possibility. "Every few years, Sonny Franzese would go back to prison for having a cup of soup with someone, but other gangsters can get permission to work together simply because they saved their own skins by cooperating with the feds," the lawyer said.

James Alite says his brother has a proven knack of "twisting the truth" and is telling only half the story involving his dealings with Leto. James confirms that Leto "ratted and wanted my brother around with him just in case he had some trouble" but insists that deal developed after they had worked out an agreement with Leto in which he would send along cash that he had gotten from a contractor who had gotten work from them. "I'll take a polygraph test about everything I say," he said.

"Johnny made a lot of money for walking around the job sites for John Leto," said Jimmy. "I had no part of that and I don't want any part of that."

As for his need for "attention," James laughed and said: "Attention? Me? Attention is my brother's gig. Have you looked at his website? He's an attention whore. Everyone who knows me and him says that."

And he categorically denied Alite's assertion that James was merely a pawn in Junior Gotti's continuing effort to badmouth his brother for the unflattering depiction of him and his late father in Gotti's Rules, the George Anastasia book about the former gangster buddies from Queens.

"Does Junior not like my brother? Absolutely, he can't stand him," said James. "And does my brother not like Junior. Absolutely, he can't stand him. No secret there. And does Junior want negative things to come out against John. Of course."

But James insists he's his own man in this legal battle with his brother.

"I only want what my lawsuit asks for," said James. "My fair share of the 50-50 business agreement we had involving construction, and the entire makeover I helped him create for his re-entry into the real world when he was released from prison."

Accused Murder-For-Hire Car Wash Owner: The Serial Egg Throwers Are Gone

Luigi (Louie Sunoco) Romano, the owner of the gas station, mini-mart and car wash who allegedly funded the badly bungled murder plot against a Genovese crime family associate in 2014, had nothing to say about that particular crime yesterday when Gang Land called. But he was happy to expound about those rascals who have been heaving eggs at cars in the Whitestone section of Queens.

Romano told Gang Land that the serial egg thrower(s) who were a pox on neighborhood car owners and a boon to the car wash that he operates next to his gas station seem to have curtailed their nasty activities that plagued the neighborhood during the same time-frame that he was being indicted and arrested on murder-for-hire conspiracy charges.

Despite the serious charges, Louie Sunoco was granted bail and permitted to attend to his business during the height of the egg-throwing outbreak. As a result, he was called on to deal with not only the flurry of cars at his car wash at 150-65 Cross Island Parkway, but also with news reporters covering the story.

"When the egg hits the car, it makes a clear imprint, and when that happens, after a certain amount of time it will start peeling off," Romano told CBS TV news on May 19, a week after his arrest. "But if you don't clean the egg right away, the egg itself, because of the acid that's inside, will eat through the paint."

Contacted yesterday, Romano said he hasn't heard of any other egg-throwing incidents in the neighborhood since then, or seen any evidence of it at his car wash, either. That was confirmed in a follow-up call to the 109th precinct, but it's unclear whether the culprit, or culprits, have been smoked out, or were scared off by the expanded police presence and media coverage.

As Gang Land reported last week, the feds say that Romano put up the $5000 that co-conspirators aligned with the Genovese crime family agreed to pay a hit team of Crips gangsters to whack hot-headed mob associate Joseph Bonelli in June of 2014.

He referred all queries about the murder-for-hire charges to his attorney.

"Luigi Romano is an innocent man," said Eric Franz. "He is an honest businessman and never paid anyone to kill Mr. Bonelli, and anyone who says otherwise is simply lying. As Gang Land has reported, there are multiple theories concerning the motive for the alleged murder plot, but the fact remains that Mr. Romano is innocent."

Meanwhile, Romano's seven co-defendants charged with taking part in the plot to kill Bonelli remain detained as dangers to the community as they await trial, which Gang Land does not expect will take place until early next year.

By Andy Petepiece

Ask Andy: The Irishman Didn't Kill Crazy Joe Gallo

In the not too distant future, folks will likely get to enjoy another great movie from Martin Scorsese called The Irishman. It's based on the Charles Brandt book, I Heard You Paint Houses. It is a biography of the late Teamster Frank Sheeran, who, among many other boasts, claims to have killed Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters president who disappeared in 1975. One of the most ridiculous tales that Sheeran spun was that he killed the famous Colombo renegade Crazy Joe Gallo. It's so off the wall, that I want to tell the real story of his murder.

In the early 1970s, Gallo was released from prison and resumed his old habit of greatly irritating the leaders of the Colombo family. After boss Joe Colombo was shot and incapacitated in 1971, the crime family's new leaders decided that Gallo had to go, whether he was involved in the Colombo shooting or not. The Commission approved the decision, so the only real question was when he would get it.

That came shortly after 5 AM on April 7, 1972. Gallo and five others in his group were seated in the newly opened Umberto's Clam House. They had arrived after Gallo's first two choices for a late snack were closed.

Suddenly, Gallo associate Peter (Pete The Greek) Diapoulos saw a man coming through the side door firing a gun. Diapoulos went down with a bullet in his backside. A wounded Gallo fled out the front door of the restaurant, only to collapse in the street. Pete the Greek got to his feet and began firing, from the side door, at three men making for a car parked across the street. They escaped. Gallo was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Who were the shooters? According to Diapoulos, the lead gunman was Carmine (Sonny Pinto) DiBiase, a mob associate whom Diapoulos knew personally. Joe Luparelli, a Colombo associate, told the NYPD, that he was in a backup car at the scene. He confirmed The Greek's assertion that DiBiase was one of the gunmen, and fingered two brothers he knew as Benny and Cisco as the others. Later, the FBI would identify them as Frank and Benjamin LoCicero, two "made men" in the Colombo family. Luparelli added that he saw Diapoulos emerge from the restaurant's side door and fire at the fleeing assassins.

Within hours of the shooting, the FBI had reports from two top echelon informants, that DiBiase and Phil (Fat Fungi) Gambino were involved in the hit. (Luparelli puts Gambino in the backup car with him.) The NYPD also got a physical description of the lead shooter from Gallo's sister who was beside him as the gunfire erupted. It fit DiBiase to a T: White, Italian male, 5ft7, stocky, balding with greying brown hair.

What about the physical evidence? Luparelli said each gunman had a weapon. He also reported that he saw Diapoulos firing a pistol. The ballistic evidence backs him up. The cops found The Greek's empty .25 Titan weapon in the street. An unfired round was just inside the side door. There were two .32 caliber slugs in Gallo's body. In the restaurant, the cops dug out slugs from a .38 Smith and Wesson and a .38 Colt. The shooting chart created by the NYPD clearly backs up the stories of Luparelli and Diapoulos.

From contemporary reports of Diapoulos and Luparelli, participants on opposite sides of the shooting, we have two positive identifications of DiBiase as the lead shooter and Gallo's sister's description of a gunman that matches DiBiase. And we have Luparelli's identification of the two shooters he knew only as Benny and Cisco, nicknames that match those of the LoCicero brothers, both made men. Add in the ballistics evidence, and we can state with confidence that Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran was nowhere near Umberto's Clam House the day that Crazy Joe Gallo died.

[Doobeez]

Instead of throwing bricks through a window, it's egging cars.

Nice little scam he had going..


Thanks for the article.

[willychichi]

These guys are idiots, Leto calls his company Standup Construction

[Pogo The Clown]

Thanks for posting this weeks column Dellacroce.


Pogo

[SonnyBlackstein]

These guys are idiots, Leto calls his company Standup Construction

+1

I'm sure Prisico could think of a new name for the company now.


Alite's becoming worse than the Kardashians. Can we stop fucking giving this guy air time please?

Thanks for the Post Dell.