Gangland news 30th march

[Hailbritain]

March 30, 2017 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Bonannos Charged In $26 Million Racketeering Scheme

giallanzo-houseFor the second week in a row, a bunch of Bonannos were hauled into Brooklyn Federal Court and charged with violent crimes, including pegging bullets at their foes in the streets of Queens. The charges show that while the Bonannos may be battered and beleaguered, they are not brokesters. This time, federal prosecutors charged ten gangsters, including an acting capo and three soldiers, with raking in more than $26 million in illegal riches. The alleged loot includes four homes and one business property, which the government wants to seize if it wins convictions.

The latest roundup came a week after the feds nabbed capo Vincent Asaro. Acquitted of the $6 million Lufthansa Airlines caper in 2015, the bigtime mobster is now accused of torching a car. This week they hit Asaro's nephew, acting capo Ronald (Ronnie G) Giallanzo, who is facing a slew of racketeering crimes that allegedly enabled him to build a $1.5 million Howard Beach mansion and maintain a loanshark book of $3 million.

Bridget RohdeIn announcing the arrests, acting U.S. attorney Bridget Rohde noted that Giallanzo and his cohorts had "amassed a fortune in ill-gotten gains" through numerous "acts of violence" including murder conspiracy, arson, and home invasion robberies primarily in Queens. That's where nine of the defendants lived — until Tuesday.

As of yesterday, Giallanzo, 46, and mobsters Michael (Mike) Padavona, 48, Michael (Mike) Palmaccio, 45, and Nicholas (Pudgie) Festa, 36, currently reside at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

So do four mob associates: Christopher (Bald Chris) Boothby, 37, Evan (The Jew) Greenberg, 45, Michael Hintze, 53, and Robert (Chippy) Tanico, 49.

And if the government has its way, the four made men will stay behind bars while they await trial, and then forfeit their homes when they are found guilty. The feds say they also want to seize the All American Deli in Broad Channel that is owned by a close Giallanzo associate, Robert (Rob) Pisani, 44. So much for showing your patriotic colors.

Ronald GiallanzoRonnie G was "employed" at the popular deli at 925 Cross Bay Boulevard for four and half months and collected "loanshark payments" there in 2013 while he was on supervised release from a 2006 extortion rap, according to a government filing. Pisani also sold Giallanzo the Howard Beach property that Giallanzo built into his "luxury home" at 164-04 86th Street, the prosecutors wrote.

Pisani, and mob associate Richard Heck, 45, were each released on a $750,000 bond.

During the summer of 2006, while Ronnie G was out on bail, he and the three other accused wiseguys were all "part of a bloody dispute" with a rival gangster who was suspected of several robberies of Pudgie Festa, who was then a "large-scale drug dealer and loanshark" in Giallanzo's crew, the prosecutors wrote. The dispute sparked four shootings and an arson over a three month stretch.

In retaliation, Festa and several Bonanno family associates allegedly "robbed a narcotics stash house" that was operated by the rival drug dealer, who is identified only as John Doe #5. The gunsels engaged in a shootout, but, as our late former colleague Jimmy Breslin famously wrote, this is another gang that apparently couldn't shoot straight. No one in either group was hit, the prosecutors wrote.

Robert PisaniSomeone did get winged, however. On another occasion, an unnamed Bonanno associate, who is believed to be one of three cooperating witnesses, shot and wounded the rival in Howard Beach when he "saw John Doe #5 in a vehicle with (his) girlfriend." The quick-thinking girlfriend promptly knocked the gunman down with her car and sped off with her boyfriend, the prosecutors wrote.

The girlfriend's car was later torched, and there were several more efforts by all four mobsters to whack John Doe #5, prosecutors wrote. But the shooting stopped in September of 2006 when he was jailed on unrelated charges, and Giallanzo's bail was revoked, also for unrelated reasons.

In addition to racketeering, murder conspiracy, and loansharking, the 37-count indictment charges Giallanzo and his nine codefendants with using extortion, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, and conspiracies to commit arson, robbery, and narcotics distribution from 1998 until March of this year to line their pockets.

Nicholas FestaIn its detention memo, the government went to great lengths to stress that the four Bonanno crime family "made men" were dangers to the community and that the business of crime paid then pretty well over the years, providing sufficient funds to flee if released on bail (even though they showed little or no income on their tax returns).

"Giallanzo was able to spend millions of dollars to purchase, construct and design a Howard Beach mansion — a gargantuan home located at 164-04 86th Street in Queens, New York, which is a daily visual reminder to those in his neighborhood of his wealth and power," the prosecutors wrote.

"Padavona earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit proceeds from his loansharking, robbery and other illicit activities" and at one point "had over $100,000 in loanshark loans 'on the street,' even though he reported no income" to the IRS from 2005 to 2016, prosecutors wrote. Padavona also ran a separate scam in which he collected over $400,000 in Social Security disability benefits from 2004 to March, 2017, "because Padavona claimed that he was disabled and could not work," the prosecutors wrote.

Michael PalmaccioPalmaccio reported "only $100,000 in income over a 12-year period between 2005 and 2016," but his "thriving narcotics operation, gambling business and loansharking operation," and the $130,000 in SSI disability benefits he got from 2005 to 2016 have enabled him to live in a $715,000 home and drive "luxury cars, including a Mercedes Benz and Maserati," prosecutors wrote.

In addition to earning untold hundreds of thousands of dollars from his thriving drug business, "Festa has received at least over $1 million in interest payments" and earned "hundreds of thousands of dollars" from other loansharking activity even though he reported no income between 2005 and 2013 and told the IRS he earned $38,000 in 2014, prosecutors wrote.

The quartet's involvement in the 2006 murder plot, and other violent acts over the years and "their access to hidden and ready cash assets" made Giallanzo, Padavano, Plamaccio and Festa poor candidates to be released on bail as they await trial, the prosecutors wrote.

Alite: 'Junior's Like A Girl, Paying People To Say Bad Things About Me'

John AliteJohn Alite can't take it anymore. He's hopping mad about a guy from Queens who's been calling him a "rat" and threatening him. No, not John (Junior) Gotti. It's a guy he calls "Junior's puppet." And the pint-sized former gangster says he's going after the guy with everything he's got now that he can't be sent back to prison for a real or contrived violation of supervised release. So, he filed an official grievance against the Queens guy, a lawyer named Elio Forcina.

In the old days, Alite was known for using a more forceful manner to settle disputes. But he told Gang Land he hasn't gotten soft and has no worries that the bigger and heavier erstwhile Junior Don might step into the fray.

"You got to be kidding," said Alite. "He's terrified of me. If I had a sleeping bag I'd park in front of his house and sleep soundly. I asked him to get in the ring with me, sell tickets, and give the money to charity. He said no. He's scared to come near me. He's like a girl, paying people to say bad things about me. I could take them both with both hands behind my back," he bragged.

John A Gotti But Alite says he's a changed man these days, who would prefer to talk about his old way of life, and tell people not to emulate it. "And, I'm not an idiot," he cracked. "I'm not going to do anything physical to him. I'm not going to go back to jail. But I will tell it like it is."

Alite fired the latest verbal shots against Gotti in their eight-year, soap-opera-like war of words this week after Gang Land got hold of a 15-page complaint about Forcina that Alite submitted to the Grievance Committee of the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. Forcina, who has offices in Middle Village and Mineola, has been in good standing there since he passed the state bar back in 2003.

In the complaint, Alite asserts that in the guise of seeking to serve him a summons for a lawsuit, Forcina, who "is in the back pocket of John Gotti Jr.," has called Alite a "Homicidal Disgusting Rat" and placed a "WANTED" poster of him on social media alerting anyone who sees Alite to text Forcina at 347-528-7099.

Alite wrote that at Gotti's behest, after filing a defamation lawsuit against him by an online radio jock named Jeff Lowman, "Forcina hired several dangerous looking characters to come to my home in Freehold, NJ under the guise of serving me." But when they learned that he wasn't home, they "screamed, yelled and threatened" people so fiercely that residents called the police, and the trio left without leaving any summons for him.

WANTED"I look forward to eventually defending myself," Alite wrote, but in the meantime, he is "scared for my family and myself" because Forcina "has a squad of people" who might "want to make a name for themselves and shoot at me or my family and kill one of us, all because Mr. Forcina told them I am a WANTED man and posted a WANTED poster of me online."

At several places in his complaint, Alite stressed that Forcina's actions were all orchestrated by Gotti, who made Alite "a marked man" after he "exposed John Gotti Jr and the truth about him and his whole family" in a book he wrote when he got out of prison. "John Gotti Jr. looks for me everywhere I go. He chastises me on TV and in the press, files false reports about me."

Alite told Gang Land, that the defamation suit "is bogus," just like the lawsuit that Forcina and Gotti "coaxed" his brother James into filing against Alite last year, one that James "dropped when he realized that Gotti and Forcina were manipulating him," said Alite.

Elio ForcinaWhen Gang Land first asked Forcina about the James Alite suit, one that Gang Land wrote about in June, the lawyer said he "no longer represent(s) Jimmy Alite" because after they filed the suit in Queens they learned that Alite lived in Freehold and "Jimmy had to get a Jersey attorney."

When told that the Alite brothers say that he and Gotti had manipulated Jimmy into suing his brother, Forcina said he had "no comment" because Jimmy "is a former client" and he did "not want to violate any lawyer-client privilege."

Forcina said that Alite was "properly served" by a "New York State licensed process server" who "posted the notice to the door" of Alite's home in November and that Alite "is upset with me because I blew the whistle to his judge that he was involved in illegal activities with a crew of cooperators."

When asked about the numerous assertions by Alite in the four-page complaint that Gotti was the driving force in the Lowman suit and that Forcina was a "puppet" for Gotti, the lawyer said: "That is outrageous, Alite's defamatory statements speak for themselves."

Gang Land will dutifully report on them if the case ever gets to trial.

Mysterious Judge Switch In Meldish Murder Case

Cathy SeibelThe federal prosecution in the gangland-style slaying of Michael Meldish in front of his Bronx home is unfolding in mysterious ways.

First was the mystery of why federal prosecutors in Manhattan were presenting the charges against a pair of accused Luchese gangsters in White Plains in Westchester County, since the murder took place in the city in 2013.

The feds solved that one earlier this month by disclosing that the murder indictment of the former head of a crew of mob-connected drug dealers known as the Purple Gang was part of a long investigation by the White Plains Division of the U.S. Attorney's office into top leaders of the Luchese crime family who live in Yonkers and Selden. The mobsters also allegedly conduct the borghata's business from the northern suburbs as well, and even hold their annual Christmas party in Tuckahoe. Hence the White Plains venue.

Now comes a new mystery — and a new judge. The switch in courtrooms came shortly after the government explained to Nelson Roman, the federal judge who was originally assigned the case and who had asked the government why it filed the case of a Bronx killing in Westchester County. Then, on March 10th, the day after Gang Land reported those reasons, the case was abruptly pulled from Roman and transferred without explanation to federal judge Cathy Seibel, who also sits in White Plains.

Judge Nelson RomanGang Land's account — which disclosed that prosecutors plan to hit Luchese leaders Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea and Matthew (Matty) Madonna with racketeering charges — surely had nothing to do with the reassignment. But what was the reason for the switch from Roman to Seibel?

Roman, a former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn is a President Obama appointee who was elevated to the federal bench in 2013. Seibel is a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan who was nominated for the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2008.

The official docket sheet is strangely silent about the change. It states that Roman is "no longer assigned to the case," that Seibel is the assigned judge, and that Seibel has gone along with the same time and date in May for a pre-trial conference that Judge Roman had scheduled for accused soldier Christopher Londonio and mob associate Terrence Caldwell.

Michael MeldishIn the Southern District of New York, indictments are assigned randomly to Judges unless the government decides that they are related to a prior case and should be assigned to the judge who handled it. Judges can reject a case for numerous reasons, and cases can be reassigned for any number of reasons. They are normally a matter of public record.

But not in this case, which still has only two defendants. And interestingly enough, both judges, who took different routes to the federal bench, say it's none of your business why the case was transferred. Neither judge would talk to Gang Land about it. And questions about it to their chambers were met with similar replies.

"The Court has no response," was the answer Gang Land got from Roman's chambers. "The Court has nothing to say about it," is how Seibel's chambers put it.

The answer could come in a status conference that is slated for May. There will also undoubtedly be more information when the federal grand jury in White Plains, that has been investigating the Luchese leadership for three years, decides whether to vote yay or nay on racketeering charges against Crea, Madonna and others.

[Hailbritain]

Giallanzo

[Hailbritain]

Pisani

[Hailbritain]

Festa

[Hailbritain]

Palmaccio

[willychichi]

Good read thanks for posting. The report says there are 3 cooperating witnesses in the Bonanno case, I wonder who the other two are assuming Lavaglio is one of them?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Fucking Mupperts.

PAY YOUR TAXES!

The SUREST way to piss off and gain federal attention is to not declare a sizeable income. You WILL get ass fucked. Death and taxes and all that. If you're pulling in 250k a year from loan, declare 150. Then your house stays your house, your business stays your business, no matter if you end up getting charged (at the least it makes it a lot more difficult for the G to repossess). At least then it's something to (literally) come home too.
Otherwise it's ALL for nothing. These guys lose at trial or plead and not only do they do time, but they come out with nothing.
Padavona not declaring ANYTHING for ten years, Giallanzo on $34k. All you're doing is picking a fight with the Feds and telling them to go fuck themselves. And the Feds will fuck you back.

These muppets will walk out of jail homeless old men. Catastrophically stupid.

Honestly this shit is gangster 101.


Would John Alite please find a hole and curl up and die.

@Willy: there was a GL several weeks ago stating Gene Borello and another (cannot recall) Bonanno associate who ran the home invasion crew who both had flipped.
Thanks for the post HB. And the pics.

[Hailbritain]

Good read thanks for posting. The report says there are 3 cooperating witnesses in the Bonanno case, I wonder who the other two are assuming Lavaglio is one of them?

I'm assuming it's valenti and maybe gene borello

[SonnyBlackstein]

I'm assuming it's Valenti and maybe gene borello

Most likely it's Frank Nunziata and Gene Borello.

They are associates of both Asaro and Giallanzo and as stated in the GL news linked below the Feds were looking at nailing both A & G due to N & B flipping.

Remember Giallanzo et al are charged with home invasions. That's as solid a link as you're going to get.

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2087

If it was Valenti then Asaro would've been charged with more than the robbery when he was the major cooperator at the Lufthansa trial.

[BobbyPazzo]

Yea I don't know shit about queens but from what I keep hearing on the boards and from a friend who is familiar with the street over there that lovaglio has nothing to do with this. He's Staten Island and has basically no connection to these guys. Borello is the name that keeps getting tossed around like HB said.

[TommyNoto]

This is a nice bust by LE as these guys seemed to be making good money and weren't afraid to use violence. This is the type of crew LE needs to bring down , money from drugs , armed robbery , fencing , book and a big loan book. A lot of old school activity .

Very active crew , with a legit business . A $3M loan shark book is sizeable today and can fund all types of activities , especially in the drug game and especially when you have an enforcer for Hard collections - guy must have made small fortune .

This is old school mafia activity here and although LCN is down and especially down with the B & Cs , there are still plenty of active street guys it seems . This crew had to off been one of the more successful ones but these guys have to start putting their $ into real estate or something legit as you can't have homes and cars like that showing very little income as once LE sees that they know they got em and can play the wait game until they get their inside man . Also has to be a reason WS must frustrate LE as they cover their tracks , blend in and must be a pain in the ass to track

[willychichi]

Good read thanks for posting. The report says there are 3 cooperating witnesses in the Bonanno case, I wonder who the other two are assuming Lavaglio is one of them?

I'm assuming it's valenti and maybe gene borello

Thanks HB and Sonny, much obliged.

[BobbyPazzo]

This is a nice bust by LE as these guys seemed to be making good money and weren't afraid to use violence. This is the type of crew LE needs to bring down , money from drugs , armed robbery , fencing , book and a big loan book. A lot of old school activity .

Very active crew , with a legit business . A $3M loan shark book is sizeable today and can fund all types of activities , especially in the drug game and especially when you have an enforcer for Hard collections - guy must have made small fortune .

This is old school mafia activity here and although LCN is down and especially down with the B & Cs , there are still plenty of active street guys it seems . This crew had to off been one of the more successful ones but these guys have to start putting their $ into real estate or something legit as you can't have homes and cars like that showing very little income as once LE sees that they know they got em and can play the wait game until they get their inside man . Also has to be a reason WS must frustrate LE as they cover their tracks , blend in and must be a pain in the ass to track

Tommy you from jersey? I know a bunch if noto's from Clifton