Gangland news 8th feb 2018

[Hailbritain]

By Jerry Capeci

His Eagles Upset The Patriots; Skinny Joey Looks To Upset Uncle Sam

Gang Land Exclusive!Joseph MerlinoPhiladelphia mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino had a big win Sunday: His beloved Philadelphia Eagles upset the Tom Brady-led Patriots to win their first Super Bowl in 52 years of trying. Now, Merlino, a hard-boiled gambler if there ever was one, is ready for a truly amazing parlay: upsetting the U.S. government and becoming the first mob boss to beat a racketeering indictment in more than 30 years.

He was in court this week, full of Philadelphia pep, voicing confidence in the legal prowess of lead legal eagle Edwin Jacobs. "He's doing a good job for me," Merlino told Gang Land during a break in the action in the courtroom of Manhattan Federal Court Judge Richard Sullivan. "I'm optimistic," he smiled, before walking off to chat with City of Brotherly Love supporters.

Skinny Joey, who watched with pride yesterday as Jacobs tore into the government's key witness against him, the controversial turncoat mob associate John (J.R) Rubeo, has good reason to feel at least pretty good about his chances.

Jacobs, who concluded his cross examination yesterday, exposed J.R. as a distasteful double dealer who duped not only the wiseguys he tape recorded, but also his FBI "handler" for four years, agent William Inzerillo, a 20-year member of the Bureau squad that investigates the powerful Genovese family.

John RubeoMerlino beamed when Jacobs, in cross examining Rubeo, played a jailhouse tape recording for the jury. The tape appeared to confirm the lawyer's contention during his earlier questioning of agent Inzerillo — that Rubeo's main goal in cooperating with the feds, after avoiding prison for coke dealing, was to greatly enrich himself with a book and movie deal about the case.

"I need to pay bills, go to college, take the money with me, milk this thing,"the government's witness was heard telling his wife in a tape recorded telephone call. "It is a warped case, book deal with George. The case is just so fucked up."

That last comment got Judge Sullivan's notice too, since it was supposed to have been redacted from the snippet that was played for the jury. After that glitch, Sullivan — it almost seems like the judge was being a bit of a spoil sport — denied the defense the right to play almost all of the 110 tape recordings of Rubeo prison calls and talks recorded by him during the probe. After the F-bomb sneaked out, all of a sudden the judge started citing "impermissible hearsay" and other such legal theories.

The "George" whom J.R. was referring to, as many Gang Land readers surely surmised, is noted Philadelphia-based reporter/author George Anastasia, who has written several Gang Land columns about the blockbuster case, and whom Rubeo contacted about writing a book even before prosecutors unsealed the monster indictment in the case on August 4, 2016.

Edwin Jacobs"I told him of course I'd be interested in a book about Merlino," Anastasia told Gang Land yesterday. "Joe was always a fascinating guy. My position was it was premature. I said, 'When it's over, maybe.' At the end of the day, in the conversations we did have, he spent as much time bitching and moaning about the feds, and the way the case went, and his handlers than talking about the actual crimes."

Even if he couldn't play any tapes, Jacobs did get agent Inzerillo to concede that he had numerous discussions with Rubeo about his desire to write a book. Altogether there were as many as a dozen, the agent acknowledged, between March of 2012 and June of 2016 while Inzerillo was Rubeo's "handler." But the G-man denied a J.R. assertion that Inzerillo "told him that he should get a $50,000 retainer for his book deal."

Inzerillo testified that they "would talk about book deals during the case" and that Rubeo "might have mentioned fifty thousand at some point," but it wasn't him talking about money. "I don't have any idea how much a book deal goes for," the agent said. "I wouldn't be able to give him any advice" on that.

It turns out, according to court records, that Rubeo was thinking book a long time ago: He also emailed longtime Newsday reporter/author Tony DeStefano about a possible book deal as early as 2012. And he also reached out to Gang Land for the same reason in 2016. His efforts with DeStefano and Gang Land were also fruitless.

George AnastasiaThere were even more reasons for Skinny Joey to be feeling upbeat and positive: During his cross of Inzerillo, Jacobs got the agent to admit that Rubeo "wasn't always 100 percent honest" with him. The FBI agent also testified that the undercover operative ignored his warning not to sleep with a woman he met while wearing a wire for the government, and that Rubeo assaulted someone while he was cooperating.

Not only that, but the agent also conceded that Rubeo was allowed to roam free, with virtually no hands-on supervision during 98 of the 104 weeks he was in Florida from 2013 to 2015 when he was working for the government. The agent also acknowledged that Rubeo had the capability to record only parts of some conversations, and skip others altogether, without the FBI being the wiser.

Rubeo also had his problems with Inzerillo. On the witness stand, he told Jacobs he "misled" him. But in several tape recorded snippets of J.R. rants, all most likely to his wife, that are filed in court papers, Rubeo ripped Inzerillo, saying he didn't "deserve to be an agent."

"If I plead guilty," he said at one point, "why not Bill, he was a co-conspirator on all my crimes. The only things I did wrong — checks, Medicare, food stamps, phone — and Bill knew."

Richard Sullivan"When I was lying I wasn't lying, I was protecting Bill," Rubeo said in another snippet about Inzerillo, who was suspended for five days after an internal FBI probe that found the agent had committed "technical" violations by not filing reports on time. The probe found no corruption or serious violations of protocol, or any other FBI foulups that might give Trump something to tweet about.

But Jacobs questioned Inzerillo's own expertise — and the prowess of the FBI — by noting that despite being assigned since 1997 to the FBI's squad that investigates the crime family dubbed the Ivy League of Organized Crime, he wrote in a 2013 affidavit that his client, the longtime Philadelphia mob boss, was a Genovese family capo when Rubeo first met Skinny Joey.

During one series of questions, the attorney got Rubeo to reluctantly concede that he never saw or learned of any violent activity by Merlino during the five year probe, and to admit that he had assaulted three people during the same time frame, including his wife.

The septuagenarian barrister began by challenging Rubeo to cite any violence he either saw or learned about that his client had committed after they met in a Boca Raton bar in 2013.

When Rubeo responded that he had tape-recorded Merlino telling a cohort "to slap around" one victim, Jacobs noted that the attack never took place and asked what J.R did when he had an argument with his wife?
"I hit her," he said.

And what did you do when you ran into a guy who hadn't paid you money you owed him?
"I hit him," Rubeo replied.

Pasquale ParrelloAnd what did you do to the panhandler who was bothering patrons outside Pasquale's Rigoletto, the Bronx eatery owned by Genovese capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello?
"I hit him with soda cans and beer bottles and cans of gravy," replied Rubeo.

Yesterday, when Jacobs honed in on a tape recorded conversation in which the incarcerated Rubeo railed on about a "fucking scumbag" and a "cocksucker" who was going to trial, someone who J.R. hoped "got 40 years," Rubeo admitted that he was referring to Skinny Joey but insisted he had no real animus against him and was just blowing off steam.

"It was just a figure of speech," he said. "I was angry. I have no feelings towards him," Rubeo added. "I'm here testifying. It's over."

The trial still has a long way to go. But so far Skinny Joey seems to have good reason to feel positive. In his opening statement, Jacobs told the jury that his client was a degenerate gambler, not a bookmaker, and argued that while Merlino may have been convicted of crimes in the past, this time around he was being framed by criminals trying to buy their way out of prison terms by putting Merlino behind bars for crimes he didn't commit.

If the jury agrees, Skinny Joey would be the first boss since John Gotti to beat a racketeering case. And as all mob sports fans know, that 1987 Gang Land win comes with an asterisk since the late Dapper Don had a little extra help with a jury member, who got $60,000 for his help, and was later found guilty of jury tampering.

Leadoff Mob Turncoat Witness Lives Up To His Nickname

Peter LovaglioThe government's leadoff cooperating witness against Skinny Joey Merlino, turncoat Bonanno capo Peter Lovaglio appeared to live up to his nickname: Petey Bullshit. As Gang Land reported two weeks ago, that's his street tag, according to his long suffering fiancé — the mother of their 16 year old son — who says he used her as a punching bag in recent years.

First, the longtime Bonanno crime family mobster testified that he was a member of an enterprise called the East Coast La Cosa Nostra. This, of course, is one of those nonsense names dreamed up by federal prosecutors to help prove racketeering charges. Sure enough, Petey BS acknowledged that the first time he ever heard the term was in November when he signed a plea agreement with the feds and pleaded guilty to belonging to this non-existent entity.

Then Logavlio, who became an NYPD informer in 2012, testified that a Florida-based Bonanno soldier named Tommy Valente introduced him to Merlino in Philadelphia in 2014 or 2015 — or maybe it was in 2016 — he wasn't sure.

His failure to remember was curious, since Petey Bullshit was a snitch during those years — first for the NYPD, then for Homeland Security — and was paid to tell officials about things like being introduced to a mob boss. But, according to all his informant reports, Lovaglio never even mentioned this high-powered meeting to his law enforcement handlers.

Bradley SirkinWhenever the meeting occurred, Lovaglio also claimed that he met a Merlino codefendant, Brad Sirkin, who was involved in a lucrative fraud scheme, allegedly with Skinny Joey, that involved bribing doctors to write prescriptions for an expensive pain-relieving cream.

Petey BS testified that he spoke to all three men about the scheme, and considered getting involved in it with them, or in a similar one on his own in New York. Since he had been promoted to Bonanno capo in 2011 and had as many as 16 soldiers working for him, he said, this looked like an interesting business opportunity. But he never pursued it.

We pause here to note that Petey BS's most recent claim to fame is getting drunk and savagely attacking a Staten Island restaurant owner with a cocktail glass for no good reason. For this, he got the maximum, eight years in state prison last year, even though the lead prosecutor in Merlino's case, Max Nicholas, vouched for Lovaglio at his sentencing. But as a separate side deal, Petey Bullshit has a cooperation deal with the feds that requires him to testify about his mob cronies.

Another curious problem with Petey BS's account is that Rubeo and his FBI handlers never encountered him, even though J.R. tape recorded Merlino and Sirkin and mobsters from five families, including the Bonannos, during the five years he wore a wire for the FBI.

Merlino attorney John Meringolo brought out during cross examination that in late June and July of 2015 Petey Bullshit was trying his damnedest to curry favor with the NYPD since they had dropped him as a paid snitch on June 22 for committing an unreported crime, according to a report by NYPD Detective Josh Vanderpool.

John MeringoloDuring the next seven days, Lovaglio called Vanderpool five times seeking his reinstatement. Despite this record, Petey BS denied that he was unhappy about being dropped as a paid informant — he earned $30,000 for that work. He testified he didn't recall how he "was feeling at the time," adding, "I don't remember what I was upset about. It doesn't say there (an NYPD report) what I was upset about either."

During a total of 12 phone calls he made to Vanderpool and his partner in late June and July seeking to resume his paid stool pigeon role, Petey Bullshit neglected to mention anything about meeting Merlino through Tommy Valente. This omission is even stranger since Petey BS made a point to tell the cops that Valente was going to be inducted into the mob — the Bonanno family, not the East Coast LCN.

In a crazy mixed up series of events — even for Gang Land — Lovaglio was re-activated as an NYPD snitch four months later after he smashed the owner of a Staten Island sushi bar in the eye with a cocktail glass in a violent unprovoked attack and contacted Detective Vanderpool.

In the spring of 2016, Lovaglio testified, Vanderpool hooked him up with Homeland Security Investigation agents and he began tape-recording conversations with Bonanno soldiers.

Brad Sirkin & John RubeoBut all through 2016, even after Merlino was indicted that August with 45 other defendants on well-publicized racketeering charges that included health care fraud, and through the first ten and a half months of 2017, Petey Bullshit never told anyone in law enforcement that he met Skinny Joey through Valente and that he discussed the pain cream scam with both Merlino and Sirkin.

He waited — for reasons that neither Lovaglio, during his testimony, nor the feds, before or after, have explained — until two months before trial, on November 15, 2017, when he agreed to plead guilty to racketeering charges as a member of this cockamamie East Coast la Cosa Nostra, and testify for prosecutor Nicholas.

These days, Petey Bullshit testified, he is appealing his conviction, and suing Vanderpool for allegedly telling him not to plead guilty to the violent 2015 assault when he was offered five years, and he is keeping up with the world of organized crime through Gang Land.

He hasn't been able to read it since he was incarcerated last March, but "people read it" to him over the phone and he discusses "what's being written with the federal agents," he told Meringolo.

"Hah," said one pundit whom Gang Land met in Sullivan's courtroom, "that's probably where he got the idea to say that he met Joey and talked to him about the pain cream."

Ask Andy: Mafia Suicides

Andy PetepieceIt's not easy to get your arms around mobsters killing themselves instead of mob rivals, but for different reasons, there have been more than a few over the years. Six years ago this month, Gambino soldier Nicholas (Nicky Skins) Stefanelli did it so he wouldn't have to testify against wiseguys he taped for the FBI.

In the early 1940s, Chicago Outfit leader Frank Nitti was among a group of high ranking members who were extorting millions in payoffs from Hollywood movie makers. Willie Bioff, the mob's union man, got jammed up, convicted, and rolled over. It wasn't long before the top five Chicago big shots were indicted on March 19, 1943.

On hearing the bad news Nitti began to drink heavily. He was next seen staggering in the rain. Two witnesses then saw a sitting Nitti fire a gun at his head. The first shot missed but the second didn't. But not dead yet Nitti was able to fire off a third round and end his life.

Nitti, 57, had a horrible time in an earlier stint behind bars and it's reasonable to assume that the prospect of going back to prison played a heavy role in Nitti's suicide decision.

In early 1946, things were going well for Luchese mobster Joseph (Pipe the Blind) Gagliano. His pockets were full with money generated by his large drug ring. Unfortunately for Gagliano though, the feds had placed a big target on his back and there would be no escape.

Nicholas SteffanelliAn agent had not only wormed his way into Gagliano's graces but had convinced the hood that he was injured and he agreed to talk business in the drug agent's car, where a deal was made, paid for with marked bills. A second agent secreted in the trunk, testified about the transactions, and Pipe was found guilty and got a 5-to-10 year bit on April 8, 1947. He shocked observers by sobbing and mumbling that he was a victim and that people were trying to poison him. Nevertheless, it was off to the Bronx County Jail for Gagliano.

Two days later, jailers found Gagliano dead, hanged from bedsheets that he fashioned into a rope to kill himself. Today he probably would have been placed on suicide watch till his desperation had subsided.

For nearly 20 years Angelo Acquisto was a close friend and underboss of Buffalo mob chieftain Stefano (The Undertaker) Magaddino. Things went south for Acquisto in the early 1950's when Magaddino discovered that his old pal was running a few rackets without kicking part of the proceeds upwards.

Magaddino's decision to demote Acquisto and expel him from the family rather than have him whacked, turned out to be a fate worse than death for Acquiso, and he ended up blowing his brains out.

Stefano MagaddinoWith his prestige on the street gone, and as a total outcast who could never be certain that The Undertaker wouldn't call his number at any time, the stress proved to be too much for Acquisto to handle.

On Jan 11, 1956, his wife heard a gunshot coming from their bedroom. She discovered her husband dead on the floor, a .38 revolver lying near his corpse. The background of this sad story lay hidden until nearly a decade later when an informant filled in the details.

Girolamo (Mommo) Adamo, the San Diego-based Los Angeles underboss is another known wiseguy suicide. He killed himself on June 18, 1956 after the death of longtime boss Jack Dragna meant a new administration and an uncertain future for Adamo.

That same year Dallas mob boss Joseph T. Pirano grew despondent about his ill health and ended it all on Oct 27. Seventy nine year old New England mobster, Frank Cucchiara, killed his wife then himself on Jan 23, 1979.

Like the 40,000 or so Americans who take their lives each year, Mafia members are not insulated from the dark feelings so intense that they decide to take what must seem as the easy way to solve their problems.

[Rocco]

Thanks for posting. WTF is with the suicide shit?

[Chucky]

Looks like Lovaglio bombed almost as bad as Rubeo did. No wonder the feds wanted to throw Kriesberg in at the last second.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the post HB.

With: the Luchesse Acting, UB, Consig and four Capo’s on trial, the Bonanno’s Acting, 2 Consigs and two Capos on trial, a Capo or Admin member of the Westside on trial and the Philly boss on trial it’s great to take a stroll down memory lane and read about mob suicides.

[bronx]

steve raffa killed himself

[bronx]

plenty killed themselves in sicily

[baldo]

Also the double suicide of the guy from the pizza connection and his son (Ligammari).

[Rocco]

Also the double suicide of the guy from the pizza connection and his son (Ligammari).

who had a connection to raffa as well. the double suicide was father and son. which is extremely strange and suspect....

[Cheech]

Thanks for the post HB.

With: the Luchesse Acting, UB, Consig and four Capo’s on trial, the Bonanno’s Acting, 2 Consigs and two Capos on trial, a Capo or Admin member of the Westside on trial and the Philly boss on trial it’s great to take a stroll down memory lane and read about mob suicides.

Im pissed he didnt discuss Canada.

[Camo]

The way this was worded i thought it was saying Merlino was a Genovese Capo at first:

"But Jacobs questioned Inzerillo's own expertise — and the prowess of the FBI — by noting that despite being assigned since 1997 to the FBI's squad that investigates the crime family dubbed the Ivy League of Organized Crime, he wrote in a 2013 affidavit that his client, the longtime Philadelphia mob boss, was a Genovese family capo when Rubeo first met Skinny Joey."

Thanks for posting Halibritain.

[SonnyBlackstein]

The way this was worded i thought it was saying Merlino was a Genovese Capo at first:

"But Jacobs questioned Inzerillo's own expertise — and the prowess of the FBI — by noting that despite being assigned since 1997 to the FBI's squad that investigates the crime family dubbed the Ivy League of Organized Crime, he wrote in a 2013 affidavit that his client, the longtime Philadelphia mob boss, was a Genovese family capo when Rubeo first met Skinny Joey."

It is. Which is beyond astonishing considering not only who Merlino is, but that Inzerillo was on the Westside squad for SIXTEEN years.

[Camo]

Damn. Has this been brought up before and i missed it? When no one was talking about it i just figured i was misreading it.

[richard_belding]

"And he also reached out to Gang Land for the same reason in 2016. His efforts with DeStefano and Gang Land were also fruitless."

Hitting him where it hurts, Jerry!

[JeremyTheJew]

interesting Lovaglio had to plead guilty to being a member of the East Coast LCN Enterprise.

[BobbyPazzo]

Thanks for the post HB.

With: the Luchesse Acting, UB, Consig and four Capo’s on trial, the Bonanno’s Acting, 2 Consigs and two Capos on trial, a Capo or Admin member of the Westside on trial and the Philly boss on trial it’s great to take a stroll down memory lane and read about mob suicides.

Im pissed he didnt discuss Canada.