GL 5/17

[Cheech]

Benny The Blade Rips His Lawyer; But Not Like He Menaced His Old One
Gang Land Exclusive!Battista GeritanoBattista (Benny the Blade) Geritano lived up to his hotheaded and nasty-tempered reputation last week by trying to fire his trial attorney, the long-suffering Walter Mack. The Odd Couple lawyer-and-client seemed to click last fall when the former top Mafia prosecutor was assigned to defend Geritano on charges of threatening to kill his former lawyer and his son. But these days the pair are in a forced marriage of sorts as Mack prepares to represent Benny even though The Blade denounces him in court and refuses to speak to the distinguished defense lawyer.

The volatile mob associate — whose alleged threats stem from Geritano's 2013 conviction for a barroom stabbing — objected numerous times to Mack's remarks on his behalf during the final pre-trial hearing before his expected two-day extortion trial is slated to begin on June 11.

But that's nothing compared to what Geritano threatened to do to his prior lawyer. In a court filing yesterday, prosecutors detailed how last year Benny sent a letter to Al Brackley warning the 84-year-old attorney that even though he "may not be around" to suffer Benny's wrath when Geritano gets out of prison in 2025, Brackley's lawyer son Patrick will pay the price, stating: "I'm going to leave your son dead in front of the court house for his standing by as you sold me out!"

In a handwritten, unsigned, four-page letter he allegedly mailed from Greenhaven state prison, Benny told Brackley he was "tired of you playing games with my life — you walked me into jail — for whatever reasons or influences that you have had or were under," according to a court filing by Brooklyn federal prosecutors Matthew Jacobs and Lindsay Gerdes.

Walter Mack"You lied to me about every fuckin issue there was," the letter continued, which demanded that Brackley submit an affidavit stating that he failed to conduct an "adequate pretrial investigation and interview potential defense witnesses" so that Benny could use it to seek a new trial based on "ineffective assistance of counsel," the prosecutors wrote.

"Let me say this one final time to you," Geritano wrote, according to the excerpts in the court filing, "if you and your son don't get me the fuck out of jail very soon — your son's head is going to come off his fuckin shoulders."

"Your colleagues," Benny wrote, "all covered up the ineffectiveness of your representation at my trial. Due to it — and your lack of care for my liberty — resulted in me being here in prison. Keep playing your games and I promise you that your son will be held accountable for me being here."

"From where I sit," the letter continued, "I can have someone still make an example of your son! Try me if you want to! But you better for his sake do what is [illegible] and necessary to get me the fuck out of here."

Benny the Blade ended his letter by writing, "Don't make me hurt these people scumbag. I know you are on your way out. Don't be selfish. You blew my case — intentionally!"

Sterling JohnsonAs Gang Land has reported previously, the key evidence against Geritano in his original case was a video in which Benny, with a knife in his right hand, is clearly seen being held away from his eventual victim by the man's girlfriend.

Geritano wasn't threatening murder during last week's session, but his outbursts were enough to prompt an obviously frustrated Judge, Sterling Johnson to twice eject Benny from the courtroom for being "disruptive." At the end of a loud and boisterous 40-minute proceeding, the judge ruled that — like it or not — Mack will represent Geritano at trial. If Benny acts up, Johnson vowed, he would "kick him out" and make him watch the proceeding on a closed circuit monitor.

Johnson further darkened Geritano's day by refusing to appoint an investigator to assist Mack. The judge also ruled that despite the clearly agitated defendant's refusal to meet with a prison psychologist, he was competent enough to assist in his own defense — and to represent himself if he wanted to — which Mack disagrees with.

In his final words about his rulings, Johnson said: "The Court of Appeals will decide whether I'm right or whether I'm wrong."

Geritano Wields Knife In Right HandJohnson's decision to keep Mack on as the defense lawyer came after a long back and forth between the judge and Geritano in which Benny first said he wanted to represent himself but later stated that he wanted another attorney. The reason, The Blade said, was because he and Mack "have a language barrier we cannot cross. We don't agree on anything."

"You are not getting another attorney," said Johnson, who stated at the outset of the session that that the case had "been pending for over a year with little or no progress" and that Geritano, who had fired one lawyer, and failed to show up for several appearances, was "the sole impediment of the progress."

Geritano's shouted out his first "Objection" to Mack's remarks when the Bureau of Prisons psychologist, who took part in the proceeding through a telephone hookup related her inability to file a report about the defendant's current ability to assist in his defense because he refused to meet with her. Johnson asked the lawyer if he had any input on that situation.

"I object to his representation," interjected Geritano, who was sitting alone at the defense table with a stack of legal papers and documents that he lugged in and out of the courtroom each time the judge asked the deputy marshals to remove him or bring him back into the courtroom.

A few minutes later, after the judge ignored several objections, and told Geritano that Mack was "still the lawyer of record," Benny stated that he had fired him on March 8.

Matthew Jacobs"You didn't hire him, you don't fire him," said Johnson, referring to Mack's status as a court-appointed lawyer for an indigent client.

When Geritano countered that the Court didn't have the "proper constitutional venue" to hear the case because the alleged crime, the writing and mailing of the letter, took place upstate New York, and argued that the indictment was "invalid and defective" on its face, prosecutor Jacobs cited Benny's remarks to argue that he was "competent" not only to assist in his own defense but to act as his own lawyer.

"I think the defendant just demonstrated he has the intellectual ability to identify legal issues like venue (and) the sufficiency of an indictment. He has a significant familiarity with the legal system. He sat through three trials," said Jacobs, who submitted a pro se appeals brief that Benny had filed in his stabbing case to show that he was competent to represent himself if he wanted.

It was during the follow-up to the prosecutor's argument that Benny decided that he really didn't want to represent himself, but wanted a new attorney, a request that Johnson refused.

The session also included a few seat-of-the-pants cracks by Mack and Judge Johnson.

Lindsay GerdesWhen psychologist Samantha DiMisa, who had concluded her part in the proceeding, disclosed that she still on the phone listening in at the end of the proceeding because she thought she was "supposed to stay on the phone," Johnson said, "That's fine."

"You may be a witness for the defense," said Mack. "I'll be in touch."

And there was one thing the judge and the defense lawyer did agree on. It came up right before the deputy marshals could escort Geritano from the courtroom when the judge ordered him out the second time right after Mack said he had seen his client's "venue motions."

Benny shouted: "You've never even seen them, you lying piece of shit."
"I've been called worse, your Honor," sad Mack, matter of factly.
"So have I," said Johnson.

Mob Wives Star Lost A Hubby To Coke Dealing, And Her Jewelry To The DEA
Ramona RizzoBad enough that, seven years ago the feds squelched her wedding plans by jailing her mobster fiancé. Now prosecutors are telling former Mob Wives star Ramona Rizzo that she should forget about getting back any of the estimated $300,000 worth of jewelry that DEA agents seized when they busted her would-be husband, Gambino soldier Joseph (Joe Boy) Sclafani, for coke dealing on August 10, 2011.

According to the feds, that's Rizzo's own fault because the five-year statute of limitations on the right to win back seized property had ended a year before she got around to filing a lawsuit to get her baubles back. Rizzo, meanwhile, is seething at her former lawyer, who, she told Gang Land yesterday, "was too busy trying to be a hotshot mob lawyer to take care of it."

Whoever is to blame, it seems pretty clear that all those lovely necklaces, earrings, pendants that drug agents seized in a bedroom Rizzo shared with her boyfriend at his Staten Island home are long gone and will never decorate the lovely Ramona again. Some pieces had sentimental value as well, Rizzo says. Among the purloined precious ornaments she lost was a locket that her late grandfather, Benjamin (Lefty Guns) Ruggiero, gave her.

But even if they wanted to, says federal prosecutor Brian Morris , the feds couldn't give them back to her.

Jospeh SclafaniThat's because the "approximately 45 pieces of jewelry" that the agents seized along with "196 grams of cocaine, a digital scale and a drug ledger" were "disposed of' between October 15, 2015 and February 2, 2016," Morris wrote last month. His reply was in response to a pro se lawsuit that Rizzo filed a year ago yesterday.

The jewelry was "disposed of" before five years had passed, Morris wrote, because Rizzo, Sclafani, and other family members ignored numerous notifications beginning in October of 2011 of the DEA's "intent to administratively forfeit the seized jewelry." The couple also missed numerous deadlines over then next three years — the first was December 22, 2011 — to establish that the jewelry was hers, and legally obtained, the prosecutor wrote.

In several meetings with then-attorney Timothy Parlatore, Morris wrote, "Rizzo was unable to provide agents with documentation relating to any of the Seized Jewelry (other than some scanned photographs provided by her counsel purportedly showing Ramona Rizzo wearing certain of the Seized Jewelry items), including evidence of the jewelry's legitimate source."

Morris says the DEA denies ever telling her, as she alleged, that agents told her she would get her jewelry back if she cooperated. "A DEA Special Agent advised Rizzo that if she provided documentation requested regarding the source of the Seized Jewelry," Morris wrote, "it was possible that the jewelry might be returned."

Benjamin Ruggiero & Granddaughter RamonaThe prosecutor suggested that Rizzo may want to try pursue her "claims for loss of the seized jewelry in a malpractice" lawsuit that she filed in 2016 against Parlatore, who represented Sclafani in the criminal case, and Rizzo in her failed efforts to get her jewelry back.

Ramona, who was arrested along with Sclafani but whose arrest was voided hours later, said she plans to do just that.

"We knew deep down that we weren't going to win the lawsuit," she said. "That was something that Joe felt we should try because he knew that was my stuff. The real culprit, and the feds said it, is Parlatore. He left it on his desk. He didn't do what he was supposed to. He had receipts from me, pictures of me wearing the jewelry. I'm not a criminal, I was arrested with Joe but they voided that."

Parlatore declined to talk to Gang land about Ramona's words, or her lawsuit. But the attorney has pretty strong feelings on those subjects, according to a reply he filed to Rizzo's malpractice suit.

Rizzo is "a former reality television personality who has made a career out of her connections to, and involvement with, various criminal elements," and she filed a "completely frivolous" malpractice lawsuit against him "as a publicity stunt to revive (her) brief and unsuccessful reality television career," the lawyer wrote in asking a judge to toss the malpractice suit.

In his filing, Parlatore wrote that Rizzo and her lawyer in the malpractice case made no effort to discuss any legal issues with him before filing the suit. Instead, he wrote, she chose to file the lawsuit and then tell the "celebrity gossip news website, TMZ" about it.

Timothy ParlatoreRizzo couldn't get the jewelry back from the feds, Parlatore wrote, because it "was purchased with the proceeds of her illegal activities, and that of her ex-husband, Wael (Wally) Al Khatib, and her grandfather, Benjamin Ruggiero."

Since Rizzo knew the jewelry could be forfeited, her "only course of action was to show that the jewelry had all been possessed prior to her relationship" with Sclafani and his crimes and "hope that the DEA would not consider Rizzo's prior history," Parlatore wrote.

"Unfortunately for Rizzo," the lawyer added, "the DEA saw through this and refused to return her jewelry."

Perhaps it's not too late for Ramona and Joe Boy, though. His original 15 year prison term was cut to nine years, and he's due to be released from prison next year, and maybe a halfway house this year.

"There will always be a special place in my heart for him, and vice versa," Ramona cooed wistfully. "I don't know what will be. He still looks good. His eyes are blue like the ocean. We'll wait and see."

$1.6 Million Tax Case Tied To Drug Deals And Bid-Rigging
Salvatore DeMeoAging Genovese wiseguy Salvatore (Sallie D) DeMeo is slated to plead guilty next week to cheating the IRS out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes on $1.6 million he made selling several buildings in Downtown Brooklyn. The case gets even more intriguing, however, once you start following the money.

DeMeo's profit came from the sale of five buildings that the 78-year-old mobster and his siblings inherited from their father in 1991. The properties were sold in 2014 for $13,475,000, according to a four-count tax evasion indictment that does not mention any organized crime activity in the sale.

But according to court filings in the Brooklyn Federal Court case, DeMeo gave $1 million of the money from the sale to a mob-tied Staten Island plumbing company, named RCI Plumbing. The named owner of RCI happens to be another Genovese crime family soldier named Christopher (Chris) Chierchio, according to a separate bid-rigging case brought in Manhattan Supreme Court by the New York State Attorney General's office in March.

In yet another Gang Land coincidence — that may not be so coincidental — RCI is the same company that Colombo crime family soldier Giovanni (John) Cerbone used to launder drug money in 2015, according to yet another separate case, also in Brooklyn Federal Court.

John CerboneAccording to filings in that case, Cerbone, 46, gave several RCI checks to a wired up snitch who gave him $250,000 in drug cash to wash.

The checks Cerbone tried to launder were all signed by Chierchio. Unfortunately for Cerbone, that same DEA informer snared him for selling cocaine, amphetamines, oxycodone and marijuana from 2012 to 2015, according to court papers. Cerbone pleaded guilty to drug dealing and was sentenced in 2015 to 70 months.

Like the DeMeo tax case, the indictment against Chierchio doesn't mention organized crime. He was hit with restraint of trade charges for a bid-rigging scheme for plumbing and sprinkler-system work at a 613 Baltic Street in Brooklyn between August and October of 2015. The luxury residential building, coincidentally, is about a half mile away from the Schermerhorn Street buildings that DeMeo sold a year earlier. Chierchio, 49, of Staten Island, has pleaded innocent. His next court date is scheduled next month.

Technically none of the cases are related to each other. But in addition to the obvious real-life connections among the defendants, there is some interesting overlap among the lawyers in the case.

John MeringoloJohn Meringolo, who was Cerbone's lawyer in his 2015 indictment, currently represents DeMeo and Chierchio. "I guess they each got a good recommendation from a former client," said Meringolo, an adjunct professor of Law at Pace College.

Federal prosecutor Elizabeth Geddes, who convicted Cerbone and is currently the Senior Litigation Counsel in the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office, is also prosecuting Sallie D. In court papers, Geddes cited DeMeo's deposit of two $500,000 checks into RCI plumbing's bank account and Meringolo's prior defense of Cerbone as a possible conflict of interest in the DeMeo case.

But after DeMeo agreed to forego any conflict of interest claims stemming from the attorney's prior representation, Judge Kiyo Matsumoto okayed Meringolo.

DeMeo, who's been free on bail since his arrest last October, is slated to plead guilty to attempted tax evasion in 2014 on Monday in a plea deal that will also cover similar charges for 2013 when he failed to declare $447,000 he made selling other buildings his old man left him.

Sources say that the mobster's tentative plea deal calls for DeMeo to pay Uncle Sam all the back taxes he owes — about $450,000 — and sentencing guidelines calling for a prison term of about two years instead of the nearly four years he faced if convicted at trial. Meringolo and co-counsel Gary Farrell will also be able to seek a lower sentence.

"This is a tax case with no allegations of any violence," said Farrell. "We're hopeful," the lawyer added, "that Mr. Demeo's age and his agreement to pay all the back taxes he owes will result in a lenient sentence for him."

[TommyGambino]

Thanks Cheech

[SonnyBlackstein]

Appreciated Cheech.

Can the photos please be posted?
Cheers.

[Stroccos]

Thanks for posting

[moneyman]

John Meringolo seems like one of the more prominent/sought after mob attorney in NYC.. he was just on the Merlino case, and I think he is Zancocchio's lawyer too.

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[/img]

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Just my humble opinion - Battista (Benny the Blade) Geritano
is an idiot. Tired of hearing about him.
And, Ms. Rizzo is extremely beautiful.

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

She deserves more than a 'thumbnail' pic. Drool away boys...

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for the Pics SP!

Geritano is fucked up. Likewise Im over hearing about him.
Couldn't really give two shits about Rizzo's jewelry either. Like to know how she paid 300k for them. But I think I already know the answer.

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Thanks for the Pics SP!

Geritano is fucked up. Likewise Im over hearing about him.
Couldn't really give two shits about Rizzo's jewelry either. Like to know how she paid 300k for them. But I think I already know the answer.

The only jewelry I'm interested in giving Ms. Rizzo
is a pearl necklace, every morning, noon and night!

[SonnyBlackstein]

Ha.

Speaking of the guy we’re sick of....

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.3995357

[Ivan]

She deserves more than a 'thumbnail' pic. Drool away boys...

She's all over Google images. Great face and body IMO. Here's the link.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch& ... GOvcxPtuTw

[Ivan]

She deserves more than a 'thumbnail' pic.

okay, this should be sufficient

[rolotomasi]

Jajajaja If lefty come back from the grave...