Gangland:11/17/16

[Dellacroce]

November 17, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Slippery Snitch Avoids Retribution But May Be Undone By His Angry Ex-Wife

Stephen CorsoGang Land Exclusive!Stephen Corso, a slippery CPA who stole $5.4 million from his friends but earned a wrist slap sentence because he helped the feds nail rogue NYPD detectives Steve Caracappa and Lou Eppolito, is living large in Encinitas, California, a San Diego suburb. He isn't likely to suffer any reprisals from the Mafia Cops, and he's had no problems with the law, despite being cited for fraud last year by the SEC.

In two weeks, though, Corso, 61, just might end up behind bars, due to the efforts of his long-suffering ex-wife.

That's when he is slated to appear in New Haven Federal Court. On Monday, Chief Judge Janet Hall ordered Corso to explain why he stopped paying making payments in 2013 of $4000 a month in restitution since the feds found more than $300,000 in a Corso bank account earlier this year. He still owes $4.7 million in restitution to his victims.

No matter how badly his testimony goes, though, it's not Judge Hall, or the feds, who'll be holding a Sword of Damoclese over Corso's head. That'll be ex-wife Beth Ann Corso, who wants to jail him for refusing to pay her, at last count, $390,782 owed her for alimony, child support and other debts stemming from their bitter 2011 divorce.

Last year, a Danbury Connecticut judge presiding over the divorce case pledged to put Corso behind bars. Noting that Corso owed his ex-wife "a ton of money" and was "jerking her round," Judge Heidi Winslow told his furious former spouse: "If you can get him to Connecticut, we'll be happy to lock him up for you."

Judge Janet HallIn court papers Ms. Corso has filed with Judge Hall, she left no doubt that she wants her ex-hubby behind bars. She included a copy of request she made just last week to incarcerate Corso for stiffing her for the last five years.

But it's not Beth Ann Corso who's gotten Judge Hall to order her ex-hubby back to Connecticut, though. The credit — or blame — for that goes to assistant U.S. attorney Christine Sciarrino. Two months ago, noting Corso's dalliance is paying what he owes, and his refusal to supply info about his earnings and finances, the prosecutor prevailed on Hall to order Corso to testify about it.

Ironically, while expressing sympathy and compassion for Beth Ann Corso's plight, the judge and the prosecutor each shot down prior requests by Beth Ann to recoup money her ex-husband owes her from seized funds. Sciarrino rejected a $182,000 back alimony claim, stating that only $13,000 in child support payments trumped restitution claims by Corso's victims. In a follow-up ruling, Hall wrote that Beth Ann was entitled to nothing from the restitution money.

Louis EppolitoBut on Monday, Hall rejected several arguments by attorney David Grudberg to block his client's court testimony in New Haven. Since Corso lives in California, the lawyer wrote that "physically travelling to Connecticut will be a substantial burden to him." Also, he had "recently provided an updated financial statement, current bank records, tax return and other relevant material to the government" and was "working to get the government any additional items it needs to assess the state of his finances," wrote Grudberg.

In a quick retort, Ms. Corso ripped those arguments. She asserted that her ex had taken three vacations in four months earlier this year, including a "cross-country trip (and) it would seem likely that travel to Connecticut would not pose any health, financial, or otherwise stated 'substantial' burdens on Mr. Corso."

"From the time his theft of $5 million was uncovered in June 2002 to present," she wrote, "Mr. Corso has consistently taken steps to hide assets from the Court. He produces little or no documentation to support his allegations regarding his income or his assets and shows a complete disregard for the term 'under penalty of perjury.'"

Ms. Corso declared, without stating how she obtained her information, that Corso "travelled to New Jersey for a wedding on July 24, 2016, which included three nights in a hotel," that he "vacationed in Hawaii from August 25 to September 5, 2016," and that he "spent a weekend in Las Vegas on October 20, 2016."

Dan PatrickBeth Ann Corso also convincingly argued that since her ex-hubby's conviction involved "an extremely complicated scheme involving the manipulation of financial affidavits and tax returns," he "should be subjected to the utmost scrutiny and cross-examination in order to uncover the true standing of Mr. Corso's financial status."

Ms. Corso wrote that in August, Corso and his current wife, Andrea, had misstated their assets in a San Diego state court filing connected to their ongoing divorce case litigation by failing to disclose more than $4000 in automatic monthly payments from their joint checking account, including $1713 for a late model Porsche.

She also claimed that Corso's use of an Interspousal Transfer Deed in 2007 to place his home in Andrea Corso's name was illegal since Corso was married to Beth Ann when he bought the property and was still married to her when he relinquished ownership to Andrea Corso.

Corso's amazing five-year-long scam was discovered by Susan Patrick, a next-door neighbor who along with her husband, TV sports icon Dan Patrick, were taken for $800,000 during the years he did their taxes. Sentenced to a year and day in prison in 2009, Corso was released from custody in 2010, after serving about 10 months behind bars.

The date that Corso is slated to testify in New Haven was not set by press time yesterday. The three tentative dates proposed by Judge Hall are November 30, and December 1 and 2.

Mike Pizzi, U.S. Marshal, Adapt And Overcome

Michael PizziMob busters often look to do things that make perfect sense, but which their superiors might not approve. When that happens, they act quietly. Like the Friday in April of 1987, when mobster John Carneglia, fresh from a stunning acquittal along with Mafia boss John Gotti, brokered a deal that enabled his fugitive brother Charles, who was on the lam during the Brooklyn Federal Court trial, to enjoy Easter Sunday dinner with his family with no fear of being arrested.

In his intriguing and informative book, Mike Pizzi, U.S. Marshal, Adapt and Overcome, Pizzi, a high-school dropout, discusses his dealings with the Carneglia brothers in 1987, and also how he dealt with judges, the FBI, other wiseguys, and so much more as he rose through the ranks to cap a lengthy law enforcement career as the U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of New York.

Born and raised in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, Pizzi grew up with many other Italian American youngsters in the 1940s and 1950s who spent too much time on the streets and not enough time in school and gravitated toward hoodlums and wannabe gangsters.

Mike Pizzi Book CoverOne day, after an "old guy" had threatened 15-year-old Pizzi "with a gun that looked like a cannon," he retrieved his grandfather's old .25 Colt automatic and chased him down the street with it before he realized that his "uncle Joe, a police officer, had fixed the gun so it wouldn't shoot."

A few days later, a "car full of dunskis, our word for mobsters," pulled up and accused Pizzi and his buddies of "messing around with one of our friends." The dunskis "wanted us to get into their car, but we said no," Pizzi wrote. "The older guys in the neighborhood had warned us never to get into the front passenger seat of a car with anyone we didn't know, especially dunskis. They called it the 'death seat.'"

Mike Pizzi, MarineWhen he was 17, he joined the Marines, a move that helped turn his life around. Pizzi cites two acronyms learned in the Marines – SMEAC (Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration and logistics, Command and communications), and KISS, (Keep It Simple Stupid). The rules served him well "in both my life and my career in law enforcement," he writes.

He earned his high school GED in 1959, while stationed in Italy. Years later, he returned to Italy, to meet the infamous Italian pentito, Tomasso Buscetta, and take him to New York to testify in the Pizza Connection case. "I tell people," he wrote, "I graduated high school in Naples, Italy, in 1959."

Pizzi uses the phrase Adapt and Overcome, another U.S. Marine Corps mantra that is part of the book's title, as headings and kickers of numerous anecdotes that describe how he got around problems, including the capture of a woman Nazi war criminal, and the high and mighty attitude of the FBI in order to work with some of its agents.

But he made friendships in the old neighborhood, even with some buddies who followed an opposite path, that lasted throughout his life.

Pizzi includes two pictures of Robert (Bobby Zam) Zambardi, a Colombo mobster who died at age 73 behind bars in 2014 while serving a 20-year-sentence for a racketeering conviction, in his book. In one, they look like brothers, showing off identical tattoos on their right arms.

"Lured into the mob life by Greg Scarpa, the FBI informer, Bobby came from a well-respected, good, hard-working family," wrote Pizzi, now 75. "Bobby was, and will always be my friend. RIP."

The Wild BunchPizzi, who began as a deputy U.S. Marshal in 1965, relates numerous anecdotes about wiseguys whose names have appeared in Gang Land. He wrote about the 1988 capture of Gregory Scarpa Jr. after a year as a fugitive, and he detailed the 1987 arrest of the late Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico, who was on the lam for seven years, noting that each was arrested by his deputy U.S. marshals, and not the FBI. Six of his deputies, dressed as Old West contemporaries of Wyatt Earp, adorn the back cover of the book.

A decade ago, the feds obtained evidence to indict Charles Carneglia for five murders, but back in April of 1987, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office had no intention of prosecuting him on the same racketeering indictment that the Dapper Don and six others had beaten, so it was easy for Pizzi to make a deal with his surrender the day after Easter.

"I agreed to it, so long as John agreed to bring Charles in on Monday," Pizzi wrote. "John agreed and Monday morning Charles was turned over to us. We normally would not make any kind of a deal with a criminal like Carneglia, but doing so this time turned into an easy collar for us, and got this madman off the street." At least temporarily. In 2009 he was sentenced to life in prison for four murders.

"Mike was the cream of the crop," recalled Edward McDonald, former Chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force in Brooklyn. "He was not a guy who ducked, or who made excuses. If something had to be done, he figured out a way to make it happen. He was an outstanding civil servant."

And he never took himself too seriously. Gang Land spent a lot of time around Brooklyn Federal Court in the 1980s. Every so often, the voice that answered the U.S. Marshal's Service phone there would grumble, "Pizzi's the name, prisoners is the game."

Granddaughter: Grandma Has A 'Blind Eye' As One Son Embezzles $250K From Another Son's Estate

Joel Cacace Jr.In a bitter, long-running family feud, the granddaughter of Colombo crime family consigliere Joel (Joe Waverly) Cacace asked a judge this week to oust her grandmother as executor of her dad's estimated $1.5 million estate, claiming more than $250,000 is missing from the account.

In Suffolk County Surrogate's Court, Dina Marie Cacace contests what she asserts is a highly dubious will that her late father, Joel (JoJo) Cacace Jr., is said to have written three months before a heart attack killed him on January 1, 2015 at age 44. In a filing on Monday, she alleged that grandma Vita Rose Cacace has "a significant conflict of interest" that makes her "unfit" to serve as the executor of her dad's estate.

In the court filing, Dina Marie's attorney asserts that while Vita Rose was serving as the executor, and under court order to preserve the assets of the estate, she allowed her son Steven to collect rental income from several estate properties, despite accusations voiced by her late son Joel before his death that his brother was stealing money from him.

Dina Marie Cacace"It is obvious to my client," lawyer James Mermigis wrote in his motion to Surrogate Judge John Czygier, "that the executor has turned a 'blind eye' to Steven Cacace as he embezzles all the rent money that he collects that should be going to the estate."

"Enough's enough, already," said Mermigis, when contacted by Gang Land. "It's not fair what they're doing to this poor girl," the lawyer said. "It's hard enough that she lost her dad; she's kicked out of her dad's house; she's gotten none of her personal property back, and we have no idea where this money is."

"It's almost two years," said the lawyer. "We haven't seen any records, we haven't seen any bank statements. We haven't seen anything. There is more than $250,000 in rental income that is unaccounted for. Do I know for sure that he is stealing? No. But how can we think otherwise. We have not been given any statement, or been told that the money is in any account. Nothing."

Vita Rose Cacace & JoelIn his filing, Mermigis wrote that Vita Rose's attorney told him that she "has a 'preference' for her son Steven" and that he "would be filing a $300,000 lawsuit against the estate." The lawyer also asserts that she has "failed to pay property taxes on the properties" and that as a result the estate risks losing them or "having to pay steep penalties" to keep them.

On top of that, wrote Mermigis, Vita Rose has callously ignored an 11-month old court order to return an I-Pad, cell phone and other "personal property" to her 19-year-old granddaughter that she failed to take with her when she was summarily evicted from the Deer Park, L.I. home she was sharing with her dad when he died.

"This can't go on like this," the lawyer told Gang Land. "It's a total disaster. I want her removed. She should be removed. I have been told that the mother sympathizes with Steven. If she sympathizes with Steven, she should not be the executor of the estate."

The Deer Park home that Dina Marie shared with her father is the only property listed in the will that her father allegedly wrote in October of 2014. Somehow, JoJo Cacace failed to include two other homes that he owned in Deer Park, as well as extensive baseball card and comic book collections, and his much-prized bright orange Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Dina Marie & GrandpaThe will, which contains a hand-written date of October 7, 2014 atop a type-written May 2015 date – four months after JoJo's death – which is crossed out, leaves everything to Dina Marie, but it calls for Vita Rose to maintain control over the estate until his daughter is 31 years old. It also contains an unusual "poison pill" clause that leaves Dina Marie with nothing if she contests the will and loses.

Gang Land was unable to connect with Vita Rose's lawyer, Edwin Black, despite several phone calls back and forth yesterday. Gang Land expects Black to oppose Dina Marie's motion – which seeks to name attorney Mermigis as temporary executor of the estate – and ask Cgyzier to maintain the status quo for the pendency of the case.

A key issue Cgyzier has to determine is whether the stated witnesses to Joel Jr.'s will were present when the will was signed, and whether they each knew they were witnessing Cacace sign his last will and testament, as New York state law mandates.

The witnesses, who were originally scheduled to testify last December about the circumstances surrounding the signing of the will, are currently slated to be deposed by the opposing attorneys on December 12.