Gangland news 11th jan 2018

[Hailbritain]

By Jerry Capeci

Skinny Joey Bests Feds In Pre-Trial Rulings; Judge Badmouths Him In Related Case

Joseph MerlinoGang Land Exclusive!Philadelphia mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino fared better with the trial judge this week than prosecutors did at the final pre-trial session before his racketeering trial. The judge ruled that an FBI agent's suspension for his dealings with key government witness John (J.R.) Rubeo in the huge 46-defendant case, and the domestic violence by Rubeo while he was wearing a wire for the FBI, will both be fair game for defense lawyers at the trial that begins Tuesday.

Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Sullivan reserved a final decision on wife beatings by turncoat Bonanno capo Peter (Pug) Lovaglio in 2015. The beatings occurred while he was an NYPD snitch but before he signed up with the feds. But in another positive ruling for Merlino, the judge blocked prosecutors from telling jurors next week about Skinny Joey's bust for violating his supervised release (VOSR) during the five year probe that landed him in the dock in 2016.

Merlino was upbeat and smiling Monday afternoon, but whether he's smiling at the end of the case is anybody's guess. There's no question, however, that the smile would've vanished if he'd been at the sentencing of a Florida "pal" named Carmine Gallo last month and heard Sullivan badmouth Merlino as a major "organized crime figure" who used "wiseguys" and "wannabe gangsters" to collect payoffs and threaten debtors who owed him money.

Carmine GalloAt that sentencing, Sullivan questioned Gallo and his attorney at length about "what the hell" led the hard-working, 40-year-old father of five with no prior arrests to end up "firmly in the orbit of Mr. Merlino." The plain-spoken judge also referred to Gallo's work collecting gambling debts as akin to a "scene from The Sopranos."

Sullivan noted that taped conversations had caught Gallo being "emphatic about his availability to be there 24/7 and 'do whatever you need to do.'" He then asked attorney Michael Alber "what is really going on here? Is he an associate? Is he a close associate of Mr. Merlino? Because Mr. Merlino is charged with serious conduct here."

"He's certainly a big guy (who) looks like he could bend me into a pretzel," said Sullivan. "I would think that if I saw a guy like Mr. Gallo showing up, and he was authorized to deliver messages like Mr. Merlino was talking about, I'd be pretty scared, I think."

"People in the orbit of Mr. Merlino are wannabe gangsters," said Sullivan. The judge cited conversations recorded by Rubeo in 2013 and 2014 to back up that claim. In some discussions, Gallo was overheard alking with Merlino. In others, Merlino and Genovese capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello were heard talking to Rubeo about various assignments and errands that they wanted Gallo to perform.

Richard SullivanProsecutor Andrea Kramer cited the same tapes and Gallo's ties to Merlino during those years and pushed for a sentence between four and 10 months, an already reduced, lenient prison term called for in his plea agreement.

Alber countered with a plea for probation, saying Gallo wasn't a criminal associate, but had become friendly with Merlino after they met in a sports bar, and subsequently made a "terrible decision" to supplement his income with illegal gambling activity when his construction work in South Florida dried up.

The judge didn't seem to buy that. "So, Mr. Merlino meets people in bars, and then he just starts tasking them with shuttling money back and forth, and collecting money from people who owe it, and sort of being his emissary?" cracked Sullivan. He then wondered aloud if "these are the kinds of bonds that are formed in Florida bars. New York bars don't seem to work that way, at least in my experience. But maybe in Florida, it's just such a bonding experience, that people enter into these relationships of trust in criminal activity."

Sullivan told Alber that unlike several other defendants in the case who got jammed up because of compulsive gambling, it didn't seem that Gallo had "a gambling problem or that he's a guy whose vice is gambling. It seems to me his vice is that he wants to be a wiseguy or a good fellow with Mr. Merlino. It seems to me that your guy wants to be his muscle, he wants to be the guy who throws his weight around and is recognized as such."

Sullivan then pressed the lawyer on how his client really managed to get close to Skinny Joey. "I couldn't get on Merlino's Rolodex if I wanted to," said the judge. "I wouldn't know how to do it, and I think most people wouldn't."

John RubeoAt that point Gallo overruled his lawyer and spoke for himself. He insisted that he really met Merlino in a bar about six years ago and considered himself a "pal" or a "friend" of Merlino, not a criminal associate. He acknowledged becoming involved in illegal gambling — a "horrible, wrong decision," as he put it — but he insisted that he "never wanted to be a tough guy, or a bad guy" and never threatened anyone or tried to intimidate anyone.

"I don't consider myself to be that type of person," Gallo told the judge.
"But you sure were hanging out with people who seem to be delighted to create the impression that you were that kind of person," responded Sullivan.
"Certainly," admitted the defendant, who seemed to be regretting having jumped into the debate.
"Was that lost on you?" needled the judge. "Did you not think that? You thought Mr. Merlino just sort of enjoyed having you around because you were such great company and because you guys rooted for the same teams?"
Here Gallo began squirming. "Kind of, yes," he said.
"Really?" said the judge.
"Yeah," insisted Gallo.

The judge here saw an opening to reference America's favorite mob show. "You knew this guy is inviting you to meetings at which there's discussions of collections, and there's discussions of gambling activity, and there's discussions about guys up in New York who are getting a piece of this action — it's like a whole friggin' scene from The Sopranos — and you think you're there just because you guys are pals, and this is just what you do on a sunny day in Florida? It just seems so preposterous to me."

Pasquale Parrello"I understand, your Honor," said Gallo. "I met him in Florida. Our relationship was very casual. However he may have perceived or whatever he may have perceived my benefit to be was not my intention by any means."
"What was your intention?" asked the judge.
"To certainly not get in any trouble or do anything wrong," answered Gallo.

After leaving the bench to collect his thoughts and come up with an appropriate sentence, Sullivan told Gallo that usually in his court "people who hang with gangsters get treated like gangsters" and that those "who commit crimes with gangsters are generally considered to be coconspirators and members of an enterprise."

But in his case, it did not seem that Gallo was "a mobster or a gangster," said Sullivan. His crimes were "inexcusable and wrong" but they didn't require a prison term of "six or eight months." The judge gave Gallo, who had spent five days behind bars back in August of 2016, "time served," plus four months of home detention, and 20 additional months of probation, and wished him, his wife, and their five children a Merry Christmas.

Sullivan had no final comments about Skinny Joey Merlino. But he's very likely to have more than a few during the next three or four weeks.

Like Oddfather, Like Son; Chin Gigante's Son Busted For Racketeering

Vincent EspositoVincent Esposito, the son of legendary Mafia boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante best known for helping his old man in and out of court and fighting to improve his prison accommodations, was charged yesterday with being a Genovese gangster in a 17-year-long conspiracy involving extortion and labor racketeering.

Esposito, 50, along with Genovese soldier Steven (Mad Dog) Arena, of Brooklyn, and mob associate Vincent D'Acunto Jr., of Staten Island, are charged with making threats of violence to force an unnamed union official to fork over "annual cash payments" from 2001 until 2015 in order to keep his union position.

Sources say that Esposito, the son of Gigante and Olympia Esposito, his father's longtime paramour, was the main beneficiary of the payoffs, and that Arena, 60, whose son-in-law Anthony Mascuzzio pleaded guilty last month to two bank heists in 2016 that netted $5 million in loot, and D'Acunto, 42, were underlings in the scheme.

Sources say that law enforcement officials, who have been investigating the case for more than three years, allegedly spotted D'Acunto, a son of an old Chin Gigante pal who died in 2000, passing cash-filled envelopes to Esposito in 2015. Esposito, D'Acunto and Arena each face 20 years for racketeering, and 20 years for extortion.

Vincent Gigante, Vincent EspositoThe feds seized $1 million, two unlicensed handguns and brass knuckles when they arrested Esposito at his home, the same Upper East Side townhouse at 67 East 77th Street that the late Godfather shared with Esposito's mom in the 1980s and '90s.

Also charged in the overall racketeering conspiracy indictment are Frank Cognetta, the secretary treasurer of Local 1-D of the United Food and Commercial Workers' Union, and Genovese soldier Frank Giovinco, a former director of a private carting industry trade group who was one of 17 defendants hit with state labor racketeering charges in 1995.

Giovinco, of Syosset, went to trial in May of 1997 along with Genovese capo Alphonse (Allie Shades) Malangone and Gambino capo Joseph Francolino, but two months into the trial, he pleaded guilty in a plea deal calling for about three years behind bars. Malangone and Francolino were convicted at trial and received double-digit sentences. In the current case, Giovinco, 50, faces 20 years if convicted.

Cognetta, of Staten Island, who earned more than $166,000 a year as a union official and trustee of the union's benefit plans, is also charged with eight additional counts of wire fraud for accepting cash payoff is several kickback schemes involving Local 1-D's health and welfare benefit plans from 2011 until late last year.

Cognetta, 42, was arrested quietly on a complaint on Tuesday, a day ahead of his codefendants. But the apparent effort to convince him to cooperate against his co-defendants didn't succeed. He was released on a $200,00 personal recognizance bond. Technically, he faces 126 years if convicted of all charges, but 20 years is more realistic.

Steven ArenaDuring mentgal competency proceedings before Gigante's murder and labor racketeering trial began in 1997, Esposito often took his father, usually hobbling along in grubby old clothes as he played his crazy-man act to the hilt, back and forth to court.

Eight years later, after Gigante had pleaded guilty to additional labor racketeering charges in 2003, Esposito complained to prison officials that his dad's physical and mental health had deteriorated after he had been placed in solitary confinement at his federal prison in Missouri in September of 2005.

Esposito filed an affidavit in a federal court in Missouri the following month detailing his father's ailments in an effort to get him transferred to a private hospital.

"When he was awake," Esposito wrote, "he remained slumped in his wheelchair and appeared disoriented and confused as to his surroundings. In addition, his breathing was labored and he was drooling. His lower body appeared to be grossly swollen, and he had involuntary tremors of his lips and hands."

Over the objections of prison officials, a federal judge ordered Gigante removed to a private hospital, where he died on December 19, 2005.

Dreary Holiday Greetings For Vinny Gorgeous & Mark Reiter

Vincent BascianoLongtime Bonanno wiseguy Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano got a lousy holiday greeting last month in response to his effort to find a way out of his life sentence in federal prison. So did Mark Reiter, the big heroin trafficker and old John Gotti pal who is also serving not one, but two life sentences and who made his own bid to overturn his conviction in a separate case.

Basciano, serving life terms for two murder convictions in Brooklyn Federal Court, one in 2007, the second in 2011, got turned down by an appeals court in just 30 words a few days before Christmas. It arrived a few weeks after he had filed his most recent appeal.

The rejection came from the same Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel that included the judge, Reena Raggi, whom Basciano had asked to be recused. The mobster accused Raggi of bias based on her participation in a 2015 book, Capital Punishment Trials of Mafia Murderers, which featured a picture of Vinny Gorgeous on the cover.

Capital Punishment Trials of Mafia Murders"Vincent John Basciano, Petitioner-Appellant, filed a motion for reconsideration and the panel that determined the motion has considered the request," was the first sentence. "IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, that the motion is denied," was the last one.

Meanwhile, Reiter's effort to overturn his two life sentences stemming from his 1988 conviction as a "kingpin" heroin trafficker got a much more detailed response to his appeal. It took Manhattan Federal Court Judge Vernon Broderick 18 months and his written opinion ran to 14 pages. But it had the same sorry ruling as Basciano's: "Denied."

Reiter had claimed that one of the life sentences he got was "illegal" because neither the judge nor jury had made a specific finding that he had trafficked in more than 100 grams of heroin. For that reason, he argued, he should be resentenced to 30 years on all counts in the indictment. But Judge Broderick ruled that under court rules at the time, no such specific finding was necessary.

Mark ReiterBroderick noted that the trial judge had stated more than once that Reiter, a former partner of notorious Harlem drug merchant Leroy (Nicky) Barnes, had dealt "substantial" quantities of heroin for several years, and that there was no doubt that Reiter had been a "kingpin" heroin trafficker who dealt in large quantities of heroin between 1983 and 1986.

"Even if Reiter's sentence were illegal," wrote Broderick, "I would decline the opportunity to modify it," noting that while he would have the "discretion to modify the sentence," he would not be required to. "Reiter's conviction of three predicate acts of murder (in the same indictment) counsels against reopening the judgment and resentencing," wrote Broderick.

The attorney for Basciano, Anthony DiPietro, plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. Reiter's lawyer, Harlan Protass, is still weighing his appellate options.

[willychichi]

More good news for the Merlino camp.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for posting HB

[Wiseguy]

Any updated pics? The ones I've seen of Esposito are all from 15-20 years ago.