Gangland:8/25/16

[Dellacroce]

August 25, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Feds Have Tapes Of Patsy Plotting To Whack His Son's Alleged Killer

The feds may be preparing an Act Two for Genovese crime family capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello, the opera-loving owner of Pasquale's Rigoletto, the popular Arthur Avenue restaurant in the Belmont section of the Bronx.

Parrello, 72, was one of the biggest catches in the massive multi-year sting operation that resulted in racketeering conspiracy charges against 46 wiseguys and mob associates in five different crime families this month.

But Gang Land has learned that the feds also have obtained evidence linking Parrello to a plot to kill an Albanian gangster who allegedly murdered Parrello's son, Pasquale Jr., back in 1993.

Law enforcement sources say that Parrello and four crew members allegedly plotted to whack Victor Mirdita two years ago after one of Patsy's longtime cronies, Ronald (Ronny The Beast) Mastrovincenzo, learned that Mirdita was involved in a City Island restaurant and spotted him and his car at the location.

The sources say that the FBI has audio and video taped evidence that ties Parrello and three codefendants in the racketeering indictment, Israel (Buddy) Torres, 66, Anthony (Anthony Boy) Zinzi, 73, and Bradford Wedra, 61, to a conspiracy to kill Mirdita in the summer of 2014. Mastrovincenzo, a prime mover in the plot, died last year of natural causes.

Sources say that a turncoat named John (J.R.) Rubeo tape recorded several conversations with Parrello and at least one of the other suspects in the plot. Sources say Rubeo is the cooperating witness identified in court papers as CW-1 who wore a wire against Parrello and many others, including Philadelphia mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino, .

Knowledgeable sources say that a bug that the FBI placed in Pasquale's Rigoletto also picked up evidence about the plot, but this could not be independently verified. (Between 2011 and 2016, according to a government filing, the feds and Westchester District Attorney's office also tape recorded talks on 14 wiretapped phones, and more than 800 conversations made by Rubeo and a "primary" undercover agent, whom the gangsters knew as "Jeff," and who wore a wire for about two years.)

Mirdita, 46, was acquitted of the younger Parrello's slaying in a contentious 1995 murder trial in Bronx Supreme Court. He was found guilty of a related weapons possession charge, however, and sentenced to 5-to-15 years. He was behind bars for 10 years. He was released in 2003.

Sources told Gang Land that the FBI squad that ran the four-and-a-half-year long investigation took the alleged plot "very seriously," and alerted Mirdita that his life was in danger.

"Agents visited him and warned him that they learned there was a contract out on his life," said one law enforcement source. "They didn't tell him who was behind it, but he's been looking over his shoulder for years and he knew what it was all about. He made himself scarce."

The sources say the warning, coupled with instructions that Rubeo got from his FBI handlers to try and dissuade Parrello from going ahead with the plan, seemed to lead to the result the FBI wanted to achieve, since the chatter about the plot, which lasted about two weeks, ended soon after.

As Gang Land reported two weeks ago, Rubeo, 40, who hails from Yonkers and who relocated to Florida several years ago, flipped in late 2011, several months after he was jammed up by the Westchester DA's office about a beating that was picked up on a wiretap.

While that is accurate, law enforcement and other sources say the event that triggered Rubeo's decision to cooperate was an arrest by Drug Enforcement Administration agents for possession and distribution of large quantities of cocaine and marijuana.

Sources said Rubeo, who had spent no time behind bars in his first 35 years, "didn't want to go to prison for 20 years" and quickly decided to cooperate.

The younger Parrello was killed on April 23, 1993. The prevailing wisdom is that he was killed by Albanian gangsters aligned with John Gotti's Bronx-based consigliere Frank (Frankie Loc) Locascio in retaliation for an embarrassing "slap-in-the-face" reprimand Parrello gave Locascio's son Tore in late 1992 or early 1993 when he became loud and boisterous in Pasquale's Rigoletto.

Following his release from state prison in 2003, Mirdita steered clear of Arthur Avenue but he was not a shrinking violet about his acquittal for the younger Parrello's murder.

In a lawsuit seeking damages for serious injuries he suffered in an assault by an inmate while he was awaiting trial in a special unit at Rikers Island, Mirdita claimed that "prison authorities were on notice" that he was "subject to reprisal because he allegedly murdered the son of an organized crime figure" and were negligent in not protecting him from his assailant.

Jurors disagreed with him, however. They ruled in favor of the city, which presented evidence that Mirdita was "intensely supervised" and wore a "bullet proof vest" and was accompanied by "armed correction officers" whenever he was moved, and contended that there was no evidence that his attacker had any connections to Parrello.

Lawyers for Torres and Wedra, did not return calls for comment regarding their clients' alleged role in a murder conspiracy against Mirdita. "I am unaware of any evidence of any such plot or any conspiracy along those lines," said Parrello's attorney, Kevin Faga. Vinci's lawyer, Alan Haber said he would have "no comment" until he gets the government's discovery in the case.

A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S Attorney's office declined to say why no charges regarding the 2014 plot against Mirdita were filed against any of the suspects, or whether they would be part of a superseding indictment in the future. A spokesman for the FBI was also mum about the matter.

If the government does decide to lodge murder conspiracy or other charges related to the alleged plot to whack Mirdita, it is very unlikely that they would do so until next year, at the earliest.

On Tuesday, during a pro-forma pre-trial session that all 44 arrested defendants, their lawyers, and prosecutors had with Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Sullivan, it was disclosed that it will take at least 90 days for the government to turn over the voluminous "discovery material" to the defendants.

The first batch — prosecutors say it will include all "consensual" recordings by Rubeo and the undercover agent and all the wiretapped conversations, as well as all the paper work that was generated to obtain the wiretaps and search warrants in the case — is due by October 31.

Most defendants, except for Parrello, Vinci and the others who are detained or serving prison terms for other crimes, wore smiles before the session as they milled around with lawyers and relatives in a crowded anteroom until five minutes before court officials opened the doors and let them in, as well as after the session when it ended and they filed out.

The proceeding, which lasted about an hour, was essentially a "get to know you" event at which Sullivan, in a pleasant and courteous, but no-nonsense tone, introduced himself to every defendant, one at a time, often asking if he had pronounced their names correctly, and always beginning his conversation with "Good morning."

Sullivan, and the entire courtroom — even the incarcerated defendants who were lumped together in the jury box, along with a sizable contingent of deputy marshals — laughed out loud during the Judge's exchange with one of the defendants, whose name, you may remember having seen in the fifth paragraph above.

"Good morning Mr. Wedra," said Sullivan.

"It is a good morning, judge," replied Wedra. "Make it a great one and dismiss the case."

Con Man-FBI Snitch Paulie Tickets Gets A Pass

What happens when a longtime mob informer is caught in a $3.5 million fraud scheme? In the case of Paul (Paulie Tickets) Mancuso, apparently not much.

Mancuso, a longtime associate of the Bonanno and Luchese crime families, did lose his secret gig as an FBI snitch after he pleaded guilty. But when he wasn't sent directly to jail, he allegedly tried to pull off yet another scam. And when the feds caught him, and tried to revoke his bail, Paulie Tickets has so far been able to stymie them, most likely because he's got a new gig as a stool pigeon.

That's the already complicated short version of a four-year-long fraud and money laundering conspiracy case against Mancuso, and his longtime Genovese associate Pasquale (Pat) Stiso, who was convicted at trial. A disbarred lawyer, Stiso was found guilty by a jury in 90 minutes.

The long version is a bit more complex. Stiso contends that codefendant Mancuso's long status as an informer denied him a fair trial, and he wants a new trial.

The key evidence against Stiso were numerous tape recordings that convinced jurors the duo fleeced millions of dollars from their victims through phony real estate deals in four states and the Bahamas, and by posing as brokers who could deliver "impossible to get" tickets to the Super Bowl and other football and baseball playoff games.

Stiso, 52, was sentenced to 41 months behind bars. He is slated to begin serving his sentence next month. Mancuso, who copped a plea deal last September, faces about four years behind bars, according to his plea agreement. His sentencing is scheduled for next month.

But the feds say Paulie Tickets, who toyed with the idea of going to trial and claiming that the FBI had given him permission to commit fraud while he was working as an informer, was back to his old tricks four months later. They say he tried to rip off $30,000 from a would-be investor in a real estate scam.

In a court filing back in January, prosecutor Anthony Mahajan asked Newark Federal Judge William Martini to revoke Mancuso's bail because he was "continuing to hold himself out as a real estate entrepreneur — using a phony alias — in a brazen attempt to lure additional victims into fraudulent real estate transactions."

Mahajan wrote that the government had evidence that Mancuso had visited the potential investor and sold him a bill of goods about an $8.8 million real estate project that Paulie Tickets had nothing to do with. The assistant U.S. attorney acted the way most prosecutors would: He asked that the con man be jailed to await sentencing, which was then set for early this year.

But following a hearing — which was sealed — Judge Martini, without giving any reasons in his one page decision, permitted Paulie Tickets to remain free on a $250,000 bond that was co-signed by his wife back in 2013, when he was first arrested in the current case.

Neither the prosecutor nor Mancuso's attorney would talk about the matter.

But Stiso's lawyers are squawking loudly, and for good reason. The obvious inference from the recent court action is that Paulie Tickets was allowed to remain free on bail because he was working as an informer for a law enforcement agency. That's the claim at least that Stiso's lawyers make in court papers seeking at least a temporary reprieve for their client, who is slated to begin serving his prison term on September 6.

In an August 12 filing, lawyers Henry Klingeman and Ernesto Cerimele lawyers wrote that despite government claims that the FBI terminated Mancuso as an informer in 2011, he was a snitch long past that, for various state and federal agencies, from 2006 until 2016. Because of that, they argue, Stiso's conviction for fraud, money laundering and conspiring with Paulie Tickets from 2011 until 2013 should be tossed.

The primary reason, they argue, is that the judge who authorized the wiretaps against Mancuso – 63 recorded conversations were played at Stiso's trial – would not have approved a wiretap of Mancuso if she had known that he was an "active" mob informer. As a result, they argue, the tapes were improperly used against Stiso, and he deserves a new trial, at which prosecutors should be barred from using the tapes against their client.

The issue before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is whether the government "must disclose to the issuing District Judge the nature of the target's status as an active confidential source" when it seeks a court-authorized wiretap. Noting that the claim is one of "first impression," (never before tackled by the court) they argue that Stiso should be allowed to remain free on bail – just like Mancuso has been as he awaits his sentencing – until the appeals court rules on his novel appellate issue.

In prior court filings, Mahajon has asserted that Mancuso was not working as an informer for any agency during the years he was tape recorded by the FBI. Even if he was an informer "against organized crime members on gambling and loansharking charges," the prosecutor wrote, that did not have "any bearing on the victim-related frauds" to which Mancuso pleaded guilty or on why Stiso was convicted of all charges at his trial.

FBI Moves Parrello Case Supervisor To Shake Up Its Sleepy Suburban Mob Squad

For an FBI supervisor to go from the flagship Manhattan office to the tiny satellite office in White Plains doesn't seem like a promotion or a reward for good work. But things are not always what they seem these days when it comes to the way the agency deals with the not-so-notorious-anymore Five Families.

But when you factor in that the supervisor in question is leaving the FBI squad that just brought down Philadelphia Mafia boss Joseph (Skinny Joe) Merlino and 45 others connected to four of New York's five crime families, and that the suburban squad hasn't been heard from in years, it becomes pretty clear that while the move may not be a promotion, it is designed to breathe new life into the suburban squad.

Longtime G-man William Vredenburgh, who took over the squad that investigates the Genovese, Bonanno and Colombo families in the middle of the Patsy Parrello investigation and oversaw it to its impressive 46 defendant conclusion, began hanging his hat in White Plains this week, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the move.

The last major case that squad made was the 29-defendant Papa Smurf garbage racketeering case in January of 2013. That case began with a witness who'd been arrested for soliciting sex with a minor, and ended with the U.S. Attorney's office dropping all charges against 10 defendants, and giving sweet plea deals to the remaining defendants.

Agent Jeffrey Tarkin, who began working organized crime cases about 15 years ago with the FBI's Gambino squad and who until last week was a member of the squad that also investigates the Luchese crime family these days, has been promoted to supervisor, and is taking Vredenburgh's old seat.

Tarkin, who has been involved in several major investigations involving the family's Sicilian faction, also played a key role in the two-year, two-country sting that the FBI worked with Italian police to convict Franco Lupoi, the Brooklyn-based international drug kingpin and six underlings of drug, weapons, and money laundering charges.

Rob Foy, a 20-year-veteran agent who cut his FBI teeth working violent gangs and moved into traditional organized crime investigations a few years ago, took over the Gambino-Luchese family squad last year, and is currently looking for someone to fill Tarkin's shoes.

[Hailbritain]

Cheers delly , looks like parrello could be in big trouble

[Cheech]

I was wrong. capeci comes thru!

[Rocco]

Paul Mancuso is a degenerate gambler who owes the Genovese and Lucchese families hundreds of thousands of dollars for the last 30yrs yrs. OC has a way of employing guys like him to work off his debts by playing a role in the gambling rings. But the guy has been suspected of being a first a dry snitch about 18yrs ago. Apparently he began gambling into other gambling rings while working for another further burying himself in debt behind the backs of the people he was working for . lol When that caught up with him I suspect he because a full fledge rat and wore a wire etc. Shows you how greedy some of the gambling rings are that they employ a guy everyone suspects of being a dry snitch because when everyone else when to jail the last 20 plus yrs on these gambling busts Paulie got probation time and time again with no jail time.

[Pogo The Clown]

Good column this week. Hopefully Parrello flips.


Pogo

[SonnyBlackstein]

Good column this week. Hopefully Parrello flips.


Pogo

Now THAT would be a good week for Capeci....

+1 good column this week.

[HairyKnuckles]

Good column this week. Hopefully Parrello flips.


Pogo

Totally agreed. We need a Genovese insider who could clear up some things for us. But that will never happen I´m sure.

I was told Parrello came up under Larry Centore and took over his crew when he died in 1992. It looks like Ralph Balsamo is a made member of Parrello´s crew, but I wonder who some of the others are? Any suggestions?

Good Gang Land this week. Thanks for posting Del! Don´t think for a second that posting these columns is nothing but greatly appreciated.

[Wiseguy]

It would have to be a long timer really high up to answer questions many are thinking. Even the couple captains that have flipped have been from the family's outposts on Springfield and Florida and didn't seem to have extensive information on the whole family. Which makes sense considering the compartmentalization and need-to-know approach the family reportedly uses.

[johnny_scootch]

It would have to be a long timer really high up to answer questions many are thinking. Even the couple captains that have flipped have been from the family's outposts on Springfield and Florida and didn't seem to have extensive information on the whole family. Which makes sense considering the compartmentalization and need-to-know approach the family reportedly uses.

Evidenced by that guy Rooster being upped to capo and going to meet the family leadership for the first time.

I mean if he's a made guy its crazy he hadn't met the top guys yet. Who made him!?! Maybe the Genovese let their captains make the guys who'll be under them.

[Pogo The Clown]

According to Anthony Arilotta he was made by Anthony Nigro (Acting Capo) and Patsy DeLuca (Soldier/Capo). The only other made members present were soldier Steve Alfisi. Compare that to the other families who always have a lot of high ranking members present during their ceremonies.


Pogo

[SonnyBlackstein]

I mean if he's a made guy its crazy he hadn't met the top guys yet. Who made him!?! Maybe the Genovese let their captains make the guys who'll be under them.

This.

Very important point.

A made guy hadn't met family hierarchy.
Are Capos making guys?

@Pogo; Wasn't Nigro acting boss?

[Pogo The Clown]

@Pogo; Wasn't Nigro acting boss?

He may have been. The timeline on when he was Acting Boss is not really clear. In the article talking about this ceremony it refers to Nigro as a former Acting Boss. It is also possible his stint came later on.


Pogo

[Hailbritain]

It would have to be a long timer really high up to answer questions many are thinking. Even the couple captains that have flipped have been from the family's outposts on Springfield and Florida and didn't seem to have extensive information on the whole family. Which makes sense considering the compartmentalization and need-to-know approach the family reportedly uses.

Evidenced by that guy Rooster being upped to capo and going to meet the family leadership for the first time.

I mean if he's a made guy its crazy he hadn't met the top guys yet. Who made him!?! Maybe the Genovese let their captains make the guys who'll be under them.

When he got made , the leadership could have been different when he got upped to captain hence meeting them for the first time , don't forget there have been a lot of different panels and acting bosses since the chin died

[moneyman]

So are we to assume that John Rubeo is the one that got Merlino involved with Parrello?

[Bruno187]

I put it out there a couple of posts back in the Merlino thread that they identified the guy themselves.
They were talking about how one guy "John" had gotten money to put out on the street and now was supposed to go and bust somebody's head. Then they went back and forth flipping between CW1, John, and if I remember right, Rooster.
I said it doesn't make sense...John is the CW.
I'm pretty sure it's a guy from the Bronx they used to call Johnny Horse. Was a partner of Zinzi's for years.