Gangland - 11/3/16

[Chucky]

This Week in Gang Land

By Jerry Capeci

Slimy Scam Artist, Paulie Tickets Mancuso, Finally Lands Behind Bars

Paul MancusoGang Land Exclusive!Gang Land has seen so many slimy, sleazy snitches that it's hard to discern the lowest of the lowlifes. Consider:
*Hector (Junior) Pagan killed a check casher, denied it, and fingered two cohorts. Both were convicted of the murder.
*John Franzese Jr. took the stand against his very old man, who hopes to get out of prison next year at age 100.
*And there's John Gotti's adopted son, Lewis Kasman, who snitched on the Dapper Don, and tape-recorded his widow after she suffered a stroke.

Yet none of them can touch Paul (Paulie Tickets) Mancuso. You haven't heard about him? Consider yourself lucky. Haven't met him? Even Luckier.

While working as an FBI informer, Mancuso, according to the prosecutors and the judge who handled his case, conned many elderly retired folks out of all their money. All told, he relieved them of more than $10 million which he said was "invested" in real estate ventures but in reality was a Ponzi scheme.

Even after he was caught, and copped a plea deal, Paulie Tickets kept at it. The feds cut him off, but he got himself another gig as a snitch. And then he asked for a break because he had become a baseball coach for his 11-year-old son and his friends.

Currently housed in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, there's little doubt that Mancuso, 50, hasn't changed his stripes, and is still trying to con people closest to him, his fellow inmates, out of something. Perhaps cash, or info that would enable him to weasel his way out of his current predicament, a 51-month prison stretch, one that is already four years less than it would be but for some undisclosed work as an informer that is currently sealed.

"With Paul Mancuso, if his lips are moving, he is lying and he should not be trusted," assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro declared at the mob associate's sentencing in Newark Federal Court several weeks ago.

That was the stated sentiment of all the participants at the gangster's September 21 sentencing, with the exception of Mancuso and his attorney, Stacy Ann Biancamano. She says her client "has deep remorse for the pain and suffering that he has caused" to his dozen or so victims and is a much "better man" than he was when he was arrested in March of 2013.

For his part, Mancuso, a longtime conman associated with the Bonanno, Luchese and Genovese crime families, was eloquent in his pitch for leniency from Judge William Martini.

Mancuso admitted he had not been "a very nice man" in years past, blaming a 30-year-long gambling problem for the severe "financial (and) mental losses" he had inflicted on his victims over the years. He had been making amends since his arrest, he said, and was "picking up the pieces to make myself a better person" and he promised to "do the right thing" by his victims.

"I am a different person, a better father, a better husband, a better son, a better brother and a better human being than I was three and a half years ago," he continued, saying he was looking forward to returning all the money he stole to the many people he fleeced from 2008 to 2013.

"There is no doubt in my mind I will be able to pay everyone in this courtroom back," he declared. "I will do the right thing by everyone in this courtroom once I have the opportunity to work again because my capabilities are very far and beyond a normal working person," he boasted.

But he was badly outnumbered: Victim after victim slammed Paulie Tickets, who also duped sports lovers into buying non-existent playoff and Super Bowl tickets, as a liar and worse as they described the pain and hurt Mancuso had caused them. Several noted they were keeping their remarks to a minimum because they had written letters to the judge, which remain sealed.

"For seven years this man tortured our lives, and I mean tortured" said one victim, a 68-year-old widow. "He told us lie after lie," she continued. "If he were to put a knife in my husband's heart, it would have been easier. My husband suffered unmercifully at this man's hands. He is now dead. Dead from stress. My husband was a dentist for 50 years. He lost the business. I lost my home. I lost my cars. My son almost lost his house. Won't even talk to me because of it."

Mancuso's expressions of guilt and remorse were merely "a bunch of words that I've heard from the time I met him," said another victim, who doubted Mancuso's sincerity and questioned the gangster's resolve by noting that he lived in a luxurious home in Glen Rock, NJ, one that is worth about $1.5 million, according to real estate records.

"He ain't sorry," the elderly gent continued. "If I was him and I lived in a house with my wife, my wife would make me sell that house to make some sort of restitution. He would have sold that house, if he was remorseful, to help payback some of these people behind me. But, he didn't do that, your Honor."

A third victim, a 76-year-old retired "intelligence agent for the National Security Agency" said that he and his 73-year-old wife had to go back to work because Mancuso fleeced them of all their savings and their ability, "at our age, to recoup and to overcome that debt and to be able to live what would be not an extravagant, but, a normal lifestyle and a normal retirement."

"This is not a man, this is a parasite who has no boundaries for his victims, a true menace to society," said the last victim who addressed the court.

"I am homeless," he continued. "I have lost numerous homes. My father, my mother, because of this gentleman. I now live day-to-day with my three children and my wife. All family members contribute their salaries to pay our living expenses and long term debt. I always worked hard in order to provide for my family. I am constantly haunted by the feelings that I failed my family and friends. Mr. Mancuso damaged my life and family. I am a broken man.

"I respectfully request the Court to adequately punish Mr. Mancuso for his destruction, devastation and pain he has caused myself and the people in the courtroom. No other hard working and honest family should have to endure what my family is going through," he said.

Citing Mancuso as the architect of a "meticulously planned and executed fraud," prosecutor Navarro asked Martini to impose the maximum 51 months called for in his plea agreement. "He designed all the schemes himself. He created false documents, false identities, recruited co-conspirators and repeatedly lied to victims," said Navarro, who also ripped Mancuso's stated intention to repay his victims.

"I find that shocking given that he has never liquidated (his) home," said the prosecutor. "I find it even more shocking in light of the fact that last year, your Honor, he was in a serious car accident where he almost killed someone. And what was he driving? A 2015 Mercedes Benz worth upwards of $50,000, brand new off the lot. Yet he says that he doesn't have any money to pay victims back."

Navarro also excoriated Mancuso for beginning his massive fraud scheme "while working as a confidential source for the FBI" and for trying "to hide behind his family" when he got caught.

"Where was this caring father when he was caught on wiretaps complaining that he had to attend his son's baseball game? He only cared about baseball when it is an excuse to get out of the house. He's an opportunist with his son, just like with everyone else," said Navarro.

"It's like the victims said, your Honor, nothing stops him," the prosecutor continued. "He doesn't miss a beat. The only thing that's going to stop him is a jail cell. He has been out for longer than a year. He has been putting this off, playing out the clock, and enough is enough, your Honor. He needs to be remanded," Navarro concluded.

Judge Martini sounded thoroughly convinced. "I don't believe what Mr. Mancuso said," he declared before sentencing him to 51 months, noting that Mancuso was "very convincing" and "very charming" when he addressed the court but that didn't mean he believed Mancuso's remarks were "genuine."

"I just heard him now," Martini said, dismissing Biancamano's efforts to argue otherwise. "I have a right to now comment on what's been heard, what I've heard. And I heard witnesses at the trial (of codefendant Pasquale Stiso, a disbarred lawyer who rejected a sweet plea deal, claimed to also be a Mancuso victim, was convicted, and sentenced to 43 months.)

"I've seen the ruination he has caused to their lives," said Martini. "And I saw how he went back to them repeatedly for more investment, knowing that he was just gambling it away and living his own lifestyle based on their money. So, you can't convince me, you know, that he has made this full recovery and that he is a really great guy."

Martini said he was "troubled" whether the plea agreement "adequately addresses" Mancuso's crimes. He considered giving him 63 months but felt obliged to adjourn the sentencing in order to do that, and said he wanted no further delay.

Several times during the session, the judge and the opposing lawyers also discussed obliquely what Gang Land disclosed in August: that even after Paulie Tickets was caught in a $10 million fraud and bounced as an FBI informer, he "got a new deal as a stool pigeon."

Mancuso's role as an informer for a new entity, most likely with a state law enforcement agency, became apparent several months ago when co-prosecutor Anthony Mahajan charged Mancuso with posing as "a real estate entrepreneur" and trying to rip off $30,000 in a scam investment while he was free on bail — and Judge Martini refused to remand him during a sealed session.

At the sentencing, Navarro called a secret submission by Biancamano that sought an additional sentencing break for that informant work a "sideshow" and a "distraction" because Mancuso had gotten a "significant break" in his plea agreement. He argued that any additional consideration by Martini was "not appropriate in this case."

The judge agreed. He ordered the sentence to begin immediately. He first ordered Mancuso to make restitution of $10,957,337, but later lowered it to the amount in the plea agreement, $3,266,250. No one really expects Paulie Tickets to make good on any of that, though. Not unless he finds some easy marks behind bars.

Mob Scion's Sentencing Adjourned Again, Until Next Year

Michael Persico was slated to finally be sentenced this week, but the businessman son of Mafia boss Carmine (Junior) Persico got yet another reprieve. As a result, Michael will be spending his fifth Christmas at home with his family since copping a sweet plea deal in 2012 that covers three murders and a slew of other racketeering crimes over the last 25 years.

Last Friday, Brooklyn Federal Court Chief Judge Dora Irizarry unexpectedly put the sentencing off until January 20. Irizarry gave no reason for the long delay, but her decision came after lawyers filed a second sentencing memo that included letters from 28 relatives, friends, and business associates seeking leniency for the 60-year-old grandfather. The first submission contained 78 letters, including one from Joyce Persico, his 80 year-old mother.

An attorney who represented one of eight defendants in a 2011 labor racketeering case told Gang Land the lengthy postponement "is not unusual for her." The lawyer noted there were "multiple sentencing adjournments" after defense lawyers filed lengthy sentencing memos in that case. "She is very deliberate in considering and imposing what she thinks is an appropriate sentence."

The new sentencing date, ironically, makes January a most important month for the Persico clan. Michael's sentencing comes a week after the 30th anniversary of what was then a mind-boggling 100 year prison term drawn by his long-imprisoned dad Carmine in the historic Mafia Commission case. Like six other mobsters sentenced on January 13, 1987, Persico became eligible for parole after 10 years even though sentencing Judge Richard Owen recommended that none ever receive it.

But after spending 30 years in prison, according to the Bureau of Prisons rules when the 83-year-old mobster was sentenced, an inmate must receive parole unless officials can establish that the convict has committed crimes while behind bars or he is likely to resume his criminal ways if he were released.

The elder Persico is the only still living 100-year defendant behind bars. Former Luchese consigliere Christopher (Christy Tick) Furnari, now 92, was paroled in 2014. Persico's attorneys declined to discuss the parole issue yesterday, but when the Colombo family boss lost a motion for a resentencing on the grounds of government misconduct last June, his lawyers said they would push for parole in January.

Two of the Michael Persico letter-writers mentioned Carmine Persico's long prison sentence as a factor in their pleas for leniency for Michael from Judge Irizarry.

Sean Persico, whose father Theodore, a capo who was convicted of racketeering in the mid-1990s, also mentioned his dad's long prison stretch while lauding his older cousin Michael as "a great father and a proud, wonderful grandfather" who has become "my mentor and a very good friend."

"We have had a lot of difficulties in our family," wrote Sean, 48. "My own father was in prison for nearly 20 years. Michael's father has been away for even longer and will not likely come home. Michael and I had to grow up facing these difficulties. But Michael has always tried to show me and everyone we know the right way to conduct ourselves, both with business and with family."

"Michael has never even suggested cutting a corner. He has always steered his children and all of his younger relatives in the right direction, knowing how easy it is to veer the wrong way," wrote Sean, who has a lone disorderly conduct rap against him, but whom law enforcement sources say is a crime family associate.

Joseph Sangiorgio, a grammar school buddy who worked for 30 years on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, also noted that Michael's older brother Alphonse, a onetime acting family boss, was behind bars. Sangiorgio praised Michael as a "keystone of the family" whose siblings and mother "would be devastated to see him jailed for an extended period of time."

Theodore PersicoFor as long as he has known him, Sangiorgio wrote, Michael has been "a good and decent man who has always followed the legitimate path" as both a friend and a successful businessman with dealings in Brooklyn and the town of Saugerties "while enduring many hard times" in his personal life.

"As I'm sure you know," he told Judge Irizarry, "he has seen his father and brother go to jail for a long period of time" and "suffered the untimely death of his wife at a very early age. Despite all of this, he remains a devoted paternal figure to both his children and grandchildren" whose loss "will cause a major rift in their household."

In their sentencing memo, his lawyers reiterated their pitch for a "time served" sentence of 72 days that Persico spent behind bars in 2010 when he was first hit with labor racketeering charges. The plea deal he signed in 2012 calls for a sentence of 37-to-46 months, which prosecutors are sure to state in a reply memo before January 20. He faces a maximum of five years.

Ask Andy: The Tax Man Cometh

Donald Trump has been under fire for breaking a 40-year-long tradition of Presidential candidates by refusing to release his income tax returns. Trump says it's because he is under audit by the IRS. More likely it's because a $916 million tax loss he claimed back in 1995 spared him from paying any federal income taxes for 18 years. It's doubtful the Internal Revenue Service will ever charge Trump with tax evasion, but more than a few mobsters weren't so lucky.

Probably the most famous case of the IRS and Cosa Nostra involves Chicago mob boss Al Capone, who was indicted on 23 tax evasion counts in May of 1931. Released on $50,000 bail, Capone decided to plead guilty and quickly made arrangements to do so. The deal fell apart in July, however, and Capone went to trial that fall.

On October 17, Capone was found guilty of five counts. He was fined $50,000 plus court costs. The government claimed he owed $215,000 in back taxes. In 2016 dollars that would be more than $3 million. Sentenced to 11 years, Capone was first sent to Atlanta then off to the new and notorious Alcatraz. Numerous appeals followed but to no avail. His reign was over; he served seven years.

One of Capone's successors, Paul "The Waiter" Ricca, also went down on tax charges. In May of 1958, Ricca was convicted on three counts and given nine years. A series of appeals followed with Ricca having two out of the three counts thrown out. He fought the conviction on that last count all the way to the Supreme Court, but lost. On July 1, 1959, Ricca began serving his three year sentence.

In New York, the feds used the tax laws against numerous mobsters, including a former cohort of Crazy Joe Gallo who moved to Rhode Island and managed to rise to underboss of the Patriarca crime family. That was Nicholas Bianco, who was charged and convicted in 1975 of tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison with the help of testimony by Crazy Joe's bodyguard the night he was famously killed in Umberto's Clam Bar in 1972, Pete The Greek Diapoulas.

Tax charges also brought down powerful Luchese capo John "Johnny Dio" Dioguardi, who was charged but not convicted in the 1956 acid blinding of newspaper reporter Victor Reisel. Johnny Dio had become infamous in the late 1950s when he testified before the McClellan Rackets Committee. In April of 1960, Dioguardi was sentenced to four years for income tax evasion.

The feds never got Luchese capo Paul Vario, the Paul Cicero character played by Paul Sorvino in Goodfellas for his involvement in the $6 million Lufthansa Airlines robbery, but they did get him on tax evasion charges in 1973. He got six years and a fine of $20,000. Interestingly enough, as of December 10, 1982, Vario still had not paid the fine. Records are inconclusive but he probably never did. He died in prison in in 1988 while serving a sentence not related to taxes.

Some other heavyweight mafia leaders who had serious tax problems, but did not necessarily end up in prison because of them include: New York mob boss Joe Profaci, Milwaukee boss Frank Ballistrieri and another Al Capone successor, Tony Accardo.

The IRS knows Mafia guys deal in cash and often don't report it on their income tax forms. The smarter ones figure out a way to pad their income on paper, at least, in some way, like gambling winnings. The ones who don't run the risk of finding the tax man at their doors, ready to play the tax card in order to lock them up.

[bronx]

so capeci is comparing trump to mob legends?..

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the post Chucky.

Much of a yawn this week.

[Chucky]

No problem, I thought so too.

Would be interesting to see Persico get out, long shot, but that would be something.

[Dwalin2014]

No problem, I thought so too.

Would be interesting to see Persico get out, long shot, but that would be something.

I initially read it too quickly and mistakingly read it as

Would be interesting to see Persico get out, get shot, but that would be something.

That would be interesting indeed, if he gets out and somebody makes an attempt on his life, another Colombo war again then. If no innocent bystanders get hit of course, otherwise it wouldn't be interesting any more of course...