Gangland - 3/15/18

[Chucky]

This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Dapper Don's Grandson Takes Five; Top Federal Prosecutor Leaves The Fray

Gang Land Exclusive!John J. Gotti — the 24-year-old grandson of the late Godfather — took a five year hit in federal court yesterday for torching a car five years ago at the behest of another old-time gangster, one from his granddad's generation. Prosecutors noted that the young Gotti was so eager to please that he didn't even ask to be paid for the arson, he did it out of allegiance to the mob.

Also of note is that the Gotti case is the swan song for Nicole Argentieri, a top prosecutor in the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office. Argentieri suffered a stunning defeat in 2015 in the Lufthansa Airlines robbery trial when aging Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro — the same gangster who ordered the auto arson — swaggered out of court, acquitted of all charges.

But Argentieri got major payback when she nailed Asaro and John Gotti's own grandson in the arson case, and pinned a monster 17-year-long racketeering conspiracy case against Asaro's mobster nephew and a bunch of other Bonannos in a companion case.

Now, after 10 years in the Eastern District of New York where she currently heads the office's Public Integrity Unit, Argentieri is moving on to much greener pastures. The 40-year-old attorney is leaving the government to become a partner at O'Melveny & Myers, a prestigious 800-lawyer Los Angeles-based international law firm with 15 offices from New York to Shanghai.

Argentieri, who was awarded a prestigious Stimson Medal for "integrity, fairness, courage and integrity" last year by the New York City Bar Association, will be feted by her colleagues today at a going away gathering at the EDNY courthouse. Among the toasts she's likely to receive are references to many recent guilty pleas she won in the wake of her loss in the Lufthansa case:

Her latest wiseguy conquest is acting capo Ronald (Ronnie G) Giallanzo — Asaro's nephew — who has tentatively agreed to forfeit $12 million in a plea deal calling for a prison term between eight and 10 years. The guilty plea will satisfy charges that he headed a $26 million dollar racketeering enterprise from 2001 to 2017.

Giallanzo, 47, was slated to plead guilty last week. But the session was abruptly put off after lawyer Elizabeth Macedonio stated that a "small issue" had arisen. Chief Judge Dora Irizarry put it over for next week when co-prosecutor Lindsay Gerdes stated that the already extended deadline for a "global plea" deal involving all 12 defendants was March 20.

Sources say that Giallanzo's tentative plea agreement calls for a down payment of $300,000, and for the balance to be secured by a lien on his $1.5 million Howard Beach home that he built in recent years. The agreement also calls for Ronnie G to sell the mansion — even if he hits the lottery and wins more than enough money to pay the entire forfeiture — which sources say has become an "important symbol" for the government in the case.

Prosecutors had earlier tried to seize the house from its owner of record, Giallanzo's wife Elizabeth. As Gang Land reported a year ago, prosecutors alleged in a civil suit that "the vast majority of Giallanzo's income has been derived from illegal activity" and that those funds were used "to purchase, construct and renovate" the home at 164-04 86th Street.

"The feds are obsessed with that house," says an attorney who isn't involved in the case but is familiar with the long-running plea negotiations in the case.

Giallanzo, and the top two wiseguy members of his crew, Michael Padavona, 49, and Michael Palmaccio, 46, are slated to plead guilty on Monday or Tuesday, March 20. Sources say the recommended prison terms for the two Mikes as well as the money they will be required to forfeit, are "somewhat lower" than Giallanzo's.

Meanwhile, the fourth "made man" in the 55 count indictment, Nicholas (Pudge) Festa pleaded guilty to two loansharking counts with sentencing guidelines calling for 41 to 51 months. Festa, 39, also agreed to forfeit $500,000. He is slated to pay $140,000 on sentencing day. The $360,000 balance will be paid off in monthly $1000 installments, beginning six months after he gets out of prison. His payments will end 30 years later.

Giallanzo's brother-in-law, Michael Hintze, also took a plea deal, admitting his involvement in two loansharking schemes, including one with Ronnie G and Festa that began in 2007 and lasted until last year, when the indictment was filed. Hintze, 54, agreed to forfeit $25,000; his recommended prison term is 37 to 46 months.

Festa's nephew, Anthony (Cubo) Cuminale, copped a plea deal calling for 12 to 18 months for being part of a five-year-long loansharking scheme with his uncle Nick. Cuminale, 27, agreed to forfeit $10,000, paying $5000 up front, and the balance at $300 a month.

None of the guilty pleas involve any dealings the Bonannos had with key turncoat Gene Borrello, the former one man crime wave from Howard Beach who helped Argentieri, and prosecutors Gerdes and Matthew Edelman make cases against Asaro, Ronnie G & Company, and John J. Gotti.

Gotti will only have to serve half of his five year sentence, according to a plea agreement that Judge Alynne Ross went along with.The remaining 30 months will be served at the same time Gotti completes an eight-year state prison term he received for a 2016 drug dealing arrest.

Sources say Argentieri, who took over the EDNY corruption unit in February of 2016, shortly after Asaro was acquitted of murder and any involvement in the storied Lufthansa heist, opted for double duty after Borrello flipped and implicated the aging mobster and his nephew in crimes, spearheading the Asaro and Giallanzo probes while supervising corruption inquiries.

In January, in her final trial as a prosecutor, and her only one since Asaro's acquittal, Argentieri convicted a correction officer of various sexual abuse and civil rights violations for raping a female inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center four times in 2016 and 2016.

Argentieri has led or overseen numerous successful mob prosecutions, but her record in major trials is nothing to write home about.

Colombo capo Theodore (Skinny) Persico, his cousin Michael, and seven co-defendants were all convicted in a labor racketeering case, but at his 2012 trial, Persico pal Frank (B.F.) Guerra was acquitted of racketeering and two murders. That loss was not as devastating as the Asaro acquittal because Guerra was found guilty of selling his own legitimately prescribed pain meds, and hit with 14 years in prison, which was later reduced to 11 years.

In 2010, Genovese capo Anthony (Tico) Antico was acquitted of the centerpiece of the case against him, a robbery murder, but even so, the 75-year-old Antico ended up with a healthy nine year sentence when the trial judge stated her belief that the jury had been wrong about that and credited some of the acquitted conduct in his sentence.

Over the years, Argentieri, whom Gang Land selected as a Prosecutor Of The Year in 2017 for her work in the Bonanno cases, has ruffled a lot of feathers, even among law enforcement officials, for what they privately say is a take-no-prisoners attitude, along with an unwillingness to change course when she should.

In that vein, Gang Land has never understood Argentieri's decisions in one case that ended in a total victory for the government, with convictions for two career criminals who went to trial and were found guilty of the $200,000 robbery murder in 2010 of check casher James Donovan.

In that case, the key prosecution witness was longtime Bonanno associate, Hector (Junior) Pagan, the triggerman who killed Donovan. Pagan wasn't the first gunman to flip and implicate cohorts in a killing that he did. And he won't be the last.

But to notch the win, Argentieri moved to big-foot the NYPD and Brooklyn District Attorney's Office and take over the case when federal drug agents told her they had a witness, Pagan, who had information about the case, and he was going to wear a wire for them. So far, that's life in the prosecution game.

Then detectives and prosecutors in the DA's office told her that they were deep into the case and had evidence that Pagan was involved in the robbery — and that he was the shooter. Argentieri — after the DEA spoke to their witness in between Mob Wives gigs with his ex-wife Renee Graziano — told them to forget about it because he denied it. At this point, her actions start to get a little sticky.

Four months later, in December of 2011, Pagan began wearing a wire against mobster buddies, including his ex-father-in-law Anthony (TG) Graziano, and he told the feds that he was involved in the robbery — and that he fired the fatal shot. He fessed up because he was worried that his role in the murder might come up in a tape recorded conversation since his wiseguy buddies knew about it.

Instead of immediately dumping him from Team America, however, and going it without him, or letting the DA's office go for the win in a state murder trial, Argentieri kept Pagan batting cleanup, and used him as a trial witness to nail two other robbery team members.

In 2014, Pagan's cohorts, Richard Riccardi, and Luigi Grasso were sentenced to 36 and 38 years. Shooter Hector Pagan, who'd been hoping for a "timed served" sentence, took 11 years. And Argentieri got three more convictions on her resume, on her way to O'Melveny & Myers.

Lawyer: Fat Sal May Look Like An Extra From The Sopranos, But He's Not Guilty

The feds gave eight defendants plea deals for their roles in the failed 2014 murder plot of a Genovese crime family associate. But mob associate Salvatore (Fat Sal) Delligatti, who was tape recorded by cops as the aborted rubout plot was underway, was left out in the cold. This week, as his trial on racketeering and murder for hire charges got under way, prosecutors and defense lawyers disagreed strongly about his role in a plot to kill mob associate Joseph Bonelli.

In his opening remarks, prosecutor Jason Swergold made sure to let jurors know about those taped talks that Delligatti had on a fateful Sunday night in June of 2014 when Nassau detectives stopped the hit team as it neared Bonelli's home in Whitestone, Queens. The tapes showed that Fat Sal was guilty of ordering the hit, he said.

"You'll hear Delligatti in his own words discussing the plan to kill Bonelli," said Swergold, who also promised the panel of seven women and five men that they will learn a lot about the "powerful Genovese crime family" that Fat Sal toiled for while he was running an illegal gambling ring and shaking down business folks, including the owners of a Queens night club.

Swergold said that Delligatti was caught on tape because he "didn't want to do the dirty work himself" to whack Bonelli, a feared gangster whom Fat Sal suspected had been telling authorities about his gambling operation. As a result, the prosecutor said, Delligatti was picked up talking about the plot by detectives who "interrupted the murder crew and saved Joe Bonelli's life."

That happened on June 8, 2014, when detectives arrested a four-man hit team travelling in a Silver Nissan. The hit team included a Crips member who was armed with a loaded .38 caliber handgun, the prosecutor said. As it turned out, the driver of the car is the government's key witness, and the person who supplied the car to the hit team is also a prosecution witness.

Defense lawyer Peter Quijano agreed that Bonelli was the target of a murder plot. He told jurors that Swergold had made "elegant, possibly even convincing" remarks tying his client to the crime, but he insisted that when they had heard all the evidence in the case, they would vote that the government hadn't proven its case.

Unlike the prosecutor, Quijano identified the driver of the car, Kelvin Duke, and the former Fat Sal pal who supplied the car, Robert Sowulski, for the jurors. He identified the duo as culprits who wrongly fingered Delligatti to escape charges against them. Their stories would not pass the "common sense" test of the jury after cross examination, he argued.

In the end, he opined, all the government's evidence — its tapes, photos, and the testimony of Duke and Sowulski — would not prove that Delligatti, who "may look, may sound, may even dress like an extra from The Sopranos" was guilty of the "charged conspiracy in this case."

The government's theory of the case would also be undone, Quijano said, by a prosecution witness "who has studied the Mafia for over 30 years," federal criminal investigator John Carillo. He would testify, the lawyer said, that mob protocol prohibits the type of murder plot in this case, especially in the "extremely secretive" and "extremely structured" Genovese crime family.

Carillo would explain, Quijano said, that punishment for members or mob associates who violate those rules "can run the gamut from a verbal tongue lashing to murder," and that "to be a member or to be an associate or to be in any way involved with the Genovese crime family, doesn't turn on how one looks, talks, sounds, or dresses."

"You will learn," Quijano continued," that having a shaved head or speaking the way Sal does, or even wearing really bad track suits does not make you a member of organized crime," he said. Nor does it prove that he is guilty of the charged crimes, the lawyer added.

By engaging in conduct that may be objectionable, such as "having an escort service, gambling, or offering to promote a club," as Delligatti had, also didn't make him an organized crime member or guilty of a plot to kill Bonelli, insisted Quijano.

The expected testimony by Carillo, Quijano said, "will show that simply knowing a member or someone involved in organized crime doesn't make you one. Talking with them doesn't make you one. Driving around with them doesn't make you one."

Neither does "going out to dinner, going to the same restaurants that they go to," said Quijano. "They are neighbors of many of us in this city. There are neighborhoods and pockets that are," he said, "mobbed up, where there is a strong presence of organized crime."

"For people living in that neighborhood, they interact with them every day. Sometimes they are their friends. You are going to learn that simply doing that in and of itself, unless there is criminal conduct involved with the organized crime person, doesn't make you one."

The trial is expected to take three weeks.

Wiseguys Snared By Canadian Mob Turncoat Looking For Plea Deals

New York wiseguys Damiano Zummo and Paul Semplice would just as soon never lay eyes on a certain wiseguy from Canada. This would be the fellow who videotaped his own induction into the Bonnano crime family — a Gang Land first — and then taped a bunch of fellow mobsters talking about their alleged crimes. This is what led to their arrests by the FBI last November.

Zummo, an acting Bonanno capo, had a leading part in the video as he presided over the 2015 Bonanno family initiation rite. He was later charged with drug trafficking. Semplice, a Gambino soldier, was arrested on loansharking charges. Each is now seeking a plea deal to resolve their pending indictments, Gang Land has learned.

Likewise, a pair of mob associates arrested along with Zummo and Semplice are also seeking to resolve the charges against them. Bonanno associates Paul Ragusa, of Brooklyn, and Salvatore Russo, of Bellmore were among a total of 18 organized crime defendants in the U.S. and Canada arrested on a variety of charges.

Those arrests all stem from the work of a cooperating witness named Vincenzo Morena, an Italian national whom Gang Land has identified as the video-taper who helped authorities make the big roundup by U.S. and Canadian law enforcers after a three-year joint investigation.

Morena, 45, was born in Italy, a factor that sources say helped him snare the hapless quartet — all of whom are also Italian nationals — on a potpourri of charges after he became a "made man."

Morena, who was a toddler when his parents emigrated to the U.S., was arrested in 1999 along with Bonanno soldier Baldassare (Baldo) Amato and dozens of others on racketeering charges. After serving about four years in prison, he was deported to Italy. He remained there until he snuck into Canada about six years ago and hooked up with wiseguys in Hamilton, Ontario, a Toronto suburb.

Lawyers for all four defendants are involved in plea negotiations with prosecutors Tana Hajjar and Drew Rolle, according to Brooklyn Federal Court filings in the three separate cases in which they are charged.

Zummo, 45, and Russo, 45, who are charged with selling more than two pounds of cocaine to an undercover operative in Manhattan last year, face maximum sentences of life in prison and mandatory minimum terms of 10 years – if convicted at trial.

Semplice, a member of the Gambino family's Sicilian faction, which now controls the crime family, technically faces up to 20 years for his loansharking charges. But the 54-year-old gangster isn't likely to face more than a few years behind bars, even if he were to be convicted at trial.

Ragusa, who allegedly bought a small cache of weapons, including three assault rifles, from Morena and was tape recorded on four separate occasions while he was in a halfway house finishing up a 20 year sentence for racketeering, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted at trial. Ragusa, 46, is the only defendant still detained without bail as a danger to the community as well as a threat to flee.

Zummo, who was held without bail for more than two months following his arrest, was released from prison in late January on a $2 million bond that is cosigned by several relatives and secured by their homes.

[Stroccos]

THAnks for posting

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[Hailbritain]

Still no picture of Zummo ??

[Rocco]

that house screams arrest me all over it......

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

that house screams arrest me all over it......

Yes it does. LOL
Here in ATL, we call houses like that one
a McMansion. Tear down an older, small house, and
erect a massive new one on a tiny lot. Considering he
probably had not job, it was a 'bust me' beacon

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the post.
Thanks for the pics.

Isn’t there a pick of Paul Semplice?

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Here ya go SonnyB.

[SonnyBlackstein]

“None of the guilty pleas involve any dealings the Bonannos had with key turncoat Gene Borrello, the former one man crime wave from Howard Beach who helped Argentieri, and prosecutors Gerdes and Matthew Edelman make cases against Asaro, Ronnie G & Company, and John J. Gotti.”

This is an incredibly ambiguous statement.

Does this mean that there will be further/additional charges relating to Borrello or are these pleas to loansharking under the agreement that no further charges (relating to Borrello) will be made?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Great stuff, thanks SP

[gohnjotti]

Seems like the Zips still have a presence in the Bonanno family. Damiano Zummo, Sal Russo and Paul Ragusa are all Italian nationals, as was Vincenzo Morena. And Paul Semplice was explicitly named as being a member of the Gambino's Sicilian faction.

[gohnjotti]

"Festa, 39, also agreed to forfeit $500,000. He is slated to pay $140,000 on sentencing day. The $360,000 balance will be paid off in monthly $1000 installments, beginning six months after he gets out of prison. His payments will end 30 years later."

This made me think about how many other wiseguys are paying back huge forfeitures when they are elderly. I imagine it's very common for mobsters to have to consistently pay back monthly installments until their 70s and 80s, which could be another reason why wiseguys never seem to retire.

[JeremyTheJew]

"
Semplice, a member of the Gambino family's Sicilian faction, which now controls the crime family, "