Gangland:9/8/16

[Dellacroce]

September 8, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Feds Look For John Gotti Solution To Vinny Asaro's Lufthansa Heist Acquittal

Gang Land Exclusive!Vincent AsaroWhen John Gotti walked free after his astounding acquittal in Brooklyn Federal Court back in 1987, it took the FBI three plus years to come up with the goods to put him behind bars again — forever as it turned out. Sources say the feds are doing their best to beat that record with Vincent Asaro, the 81-year-old Bonanno capo who stunned everyone — including himself — when he beat the charges in the storied $6 million Lufthansa Airlines robbery in November, and held court like the Dapper Don as he smiled all the way back home to Queens.

They wouldn't give any details, but law enforcement sources grudgingly conceded this week that Asaro and his mobster nephew Ronald Giallanzo are subjects of an ongoing federal grand jury investigation regarding a group of mob associates who have been tied to a slew of home invasion robberies in Howard Beach, Queens in 2013 and 2014.

Sources say two members of the robbery crew, including one who claims he's been involved in criminal activity with Asaro, are cooperating with the feds. In a bid to recruit another cooperator, FBI agents also recently told another crew member who "knows Asaro" and has had dealings with him that they had evidence linking him to "14 home invasions" in an effort to convince him to join Team America.

Ronald GiallanzoThe sources say the grand jury has also issued several subpoenas for witness testimony, as well as for books and records believed to link Giallanzo to the robbery crew. Some of the subpoenaed information pertains to financial information about a new Howard Beach home that Giallanzo has built in the last year or so.

Feeding the feds the inside info on the home invasion ring, sources say, are Frank Nunziata, and Gene Borrello, two 31-year-old members of the robbery crew that also preyed on residents in other sections of Queens and on Long Island. Both men are said to be cooperating in a probe by the FBI, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office and the Queens District Attorney's office.

Nunziata began cooperating with the NYPD's Organized Crime Investigation Division following a drug arrest in 2013. He fingered Borrello and another crew member, who were arrested by the NYPD in June of 2014, as they were on their way to rob the home of a suspected drug dealer in the upscale Five Towns area of Long Island, according to court papers.

Gene BorrelloSources say that Borrello, after sitting tight for a long time — he even wrote Gang Land a letter protesting his innocence after we reported his arrest — agreed to cooperate within the last few months, and has told the feds that for a time he was a member of Asaro's crew.

The sources say that based on information Borrello provided, the FBI got a court order about 10 days ago, and pulled another reputed member of the robbery crew, William Dublyn, out of a Florida prison where he is serving six years for robbery, and had the Bureau of Prisons transport him to New York in an effort to flip him.

Dublyn, 35, a Queens native who was convicted last year of a 2014 home invasion robbery in Florida, is currently housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Home invasions have been a growth industry for mobsters in recent years, especially with the Bonanno family. As Gang Land reported last year, authorities suspect that family soldier John (Bazoo) Ragano, an Asaro codefendant in the Lufthansa case who pleaded guilty to loansharking and is serving a 51-month prison term, was involved in at least one robbery by the home invasion crew — a 2014 break-in at the home of a Bonanno associate who was affiliated for decades with Asaro.

William DublynThe unlucky victim in that break-in was Robert Cotrone, who runs an Ozone Park auto body shop. Ragano, 54, is suspected of fingering Cotrone, for the March 12, 2014 robbery. That was two months after Ragano and Asaro — who was Cotrone's longtime mob protector — were each detained without bail as dangers to the community following their arrest on charges that grew out of the Lufthansa heist investigation.

Why finger one of your own for the robbery, you might ask? The motive, a law enforcement official told Gang Land, was "money, of course."

"The guy's a gangster, locked up, he needs cash," and Cotrone, "the other guy, is unprotected," the source said. "His guy (Asaro) just got put away. There's no honor with these guys. It's survival of the fittest. It's simple: He needed the money, he` knew there'd be no payback."

Elizabeth Macedonio, Vincent Asaro, Doane FerroneSeven weeks after Ragone's arrest, Cotrone, who also owns a towing service and an auto glass repair chop, woke up to three masked gunmen who tied him up and escaped with thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry that they forced him to turn over.

Attorney Elizabeth Macedonio, who engineered Asaro's acquittal and also represents Giallanzo, declined to comment, as did state and federal authorities Gang Land contacted about the case.

Giallanzo, 46, is currently behind bars for violating his post-prison supervised release restrictions by attending a Bonanno family Christmas party last year following an 87 month sentence for a 2007 racketeering and extortion conviction. He's due to be released in December.

Asaro, who morphed from a grumpy old curmudgeon during his trial to a quick-witted funnyman who kidded news reporters outside the courthouse and marveled, "John Gotti didn't get this much press," has maintained a low profile since then, seemingly content that his monthly social security payments were resumed when he was released after spending 22 months behind bars.

Reverend Al's Mob Supervisor Had A Cameo Role In Five Family Case

Daniel PaganoGenovese capo Daniel Pagano was not charged last month — or even mentioned — in the huge racketeering case against 46 mob-linked defendants from five crime families. But sources say he played a major role in a mob sitdown in the case that involved the boss of the Philadelphia crime family and a millionaire broker with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

Sources say that neither man — defendants Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino, nor Anthony Cirillo, the owner of Princeton Securities Group, which has hedge funds and other major investors as clients — were at the sitdown. It was called, sources say, to resolve a $14,000 gambling dispute that involved the two men, and a third defendant in the racketeering conspiracy indictment, a reputed Gambino associate from Delray Beach, Florida named Carmine Gallo.

Anthony CirilloGambino associate Daniel Marino Jr., who is charged along with Merlino, Cirillo, and Gallo, with being "involved in an illegal sports gambling business that was based in New York, New Jersey, and Florida," and John (J.R.) Rubeo, the mob turncoat in the case, attended the sitdown in March of 2014 at a steak house in New Jersey, according to law enforcement and other sources.

The sources say that Pagano was called on to decide the dispute when Rubeo, on instructions from his FBI handlers, complained to his mob superior, capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello, that Cirillo, 51, Gallo, 38, and Merlino, 54, were "jerking him around" by pointing fingers at each other.

"Cirillo kept telling JR he gave the money to Carmine, and Carmine kept telling JR he gave the money to Joey," said one source, who added that Merlino, who has a longstanding reputation of being a deadbeat when it comes to gambling losses, was ducking Rubeo.

Daniel Marino JrAt the sitdown, sources said that Pagano listened to Marino, 49, explain that Cirillo, of Englewood Cliffs, NJ, was not a beat artist, and that he had indeed sent along the money he owed, but that it apparently ended up in Merlino's pocket, through no fault of Cirillo's.

Pagano, a savvy heavyweight wiseguy who was a major player in the lucrative oil and gas, daisy-chain scheme with Russian gangsters in the 1980s, and who was the Reverend Al Sharpton's mob supervisor when Reverend Al was playing ball with wiseguys back in the day, was apparently not awestruck by the stature of Merlino or Cirillo.

"I really like Anthony Cirillo, don't make me not like him," said Pagano, according to a source who is familiar with the discussion, one of hundreds tape recorded by Rubeo in the five years he wore a wire for the feds. "We played games like this back in the 1970s," said Pagano. "I gave it this guy, I gave it to that guy. Listen, if Anthony Cirillo gave it to Joey, and Joey doesn't give it to this kid JR, then he's going to have to pay it again."

Carmine GalloA day or two later, after Rubeo had traveled back to Boca Raton, sources say Merlino called him, and chastised him for being a "tattletale," and causing him trouble with the Genovese crime family.

"Here's seven thousand," said Merlino. "I gave the other seven thousand to Carmine."

Pagano, who was indicted on racketeering charges for heading a lucrative gambling operation based in Rockland County a few months after the sitdown, is not charged in the Merlino case, most likely because his plea agreement covered his role in a gambling operation through August 7, 2014, about five months after he took part in the New Jersey sitdown.

Widowed Mom Not Happy About Settlement In Embarrassing Lawsuit

Elinor GravanteThe 81-year-old widow of attorney Nicholas Gravante Sr. and her children settled the most embarrassing lawsuit in Gang Land last week. But Elinor Gravante is not happy with the end result. She is also furious that her kids spread false rumors that she was suffering from dementia when they sued her over millions of dollars in property that her late husband acquired as a real estate lawyer for many high-ranked wisguys over the years.

"I don't want to see them for the rest of my life," Mrs. Gravante told Gang Land. "How can I forget what they did to me, suing me in Florida while we were trying to work out an agreement in New York?

"How could they do this their mother?" she continued. "It's not a normal thing. Not normal for children to accuse their mother of dementia. Maybe a step mother, but not a mother. I had to go for a dementia test. I passed it with flying colors," said Mrs. Gravante this week.

She declined to discuss the terms of the settlement, which was negotiated after a Florida federal judge dismissed the suit filed by her high-powered Manhattan lawyer son Nicholas Jr., and his brother Richard, also an attorney, and their sister Christine Castellano, and transferred the case to Brooklyn, where Mrs. Gravante countersued her children three weeks later.

Nicholas Gravante Jr.As Gang Land first reported, the Gravante kids filed their Florida suit in March, while attorneys for both sides were trying to settle the dispute involving $600,000 in yearly income from four New York rental properties — three in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan worth about $15 million. Mrs. Gravante also claimed to be the rightful owner of a $1.2 million Connecticut home where her daughter Christine lived with her family.

"Am I happy with the settlement? No," said Mrs. Gravante, who explained that after discussions with her attorneys Barry Kingham and Michael Trafficante, "who were more concerned about me and my welfare than my children," she decided to get on with her life now, and not engage in a protracted legal fight. "I'm going to be 82 in November," she said.

Mrs. Gravante is angry with all her kids, but blamed her oldest son Nicholas, a managing partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, LLP, as the driving force of her legal problems with her kids.

"He's a spinner, he can make people believe anything," she said. "My son buys people. He gets people tickets to tennis, to football games. He buys people. Is he a nice person? Absolutely not. When my lawyer asked, 'Don't you think your reputation is going to be tarnished?' he said, 'No.' I think he's wrong. I think it is."

Nicholas Gravante Sr.Yesterday, Gravante Jr. told Gang Land that he loves his "mother very much" and "regret(s) that the entire dispute among our family members reached the level that it did. I look forward to the entire family putting this behind us and getting back together again."

The attorney also stated his belief that the "only way" to resolve the family dispute "was to file a lawsuit," repeating what he told The Daily News earlier this week.

"In order for it to end," said Gravante, "it had to get worse before it got better. After 10 months of distasteful arguing, no matter how sad I was that it had reached that point, filing a lawsuit to bring this to a head was, in retrospect, the best move I could have made. It delivered a much needed wake-up call, and now, less than five months later, all disputes have been settled on terms acceptable to everyone."

He's obviously wrong in thinking that the resolution is acceptable to all members of the Gravante family.

[Hailbritain]

Capeci stating that asaro is still a captain

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks as always to Dell for the post.

Is it possible to post pictures?

[Hailbritain]

Thanks as always to Dell for the post.

Is it possible to post pictures?

I've got them sonny , I will post them

[Hailbritain]

Gangland photos this week

[Hailbritain]

Gangland photos

[Hailbritain]

Gangland

[Hailbritain]

Gangland

[SonnyBlackstein]

Much Appreciated HB.

Cheers.

[moneyman]

Interesting that Pagano was mediating that dispute with the Gambino associate and Rubeo, especially if Rubeo is under Parrello. Parrello is a captain yet Pagano handles the dispute. I wonder if and how Barney and DeChiara will be brought up in the trial..

[Nicholas]

Home Invasion crews now; eh?

[Wiseguy]

Home Invasion crews now; eh?

Not exactly new. The mob has been more involved in it for a while now and there are examples here and there from decades ago.

[Pogo The Clown]

They have been doing it since at least the 70s.


Pogo

[phatmatress777]

They have been doing it since at least the 70s.


Pogo

They were also very big with associate crews like the bath ave crew with calandra and Paulie brass and the new Springfield boys kinda the farm leagues of Lcn


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[Snakes]

Yeah, a lot of guys cut their teeth on the robbery, burglary, and home invasion stuff.