Gangland - 11/15/18

[Chucky]

This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

FBI Agent: Even When A Gangster Says 'No,' We Can Still Get Him On Drug Charges

Back in 2014, a slow witted mob informer who was helping the feds build a racketeering and murder case against a bunch of Luchese gangsters forgot to turn off his recording device. As a result, Gang Land has learned, the turncoat recorded some embarrassing comments from an FBI undercover agent that were never supposed to see the light of day.

The snitch, mob associate Robert Spinelli, recorded himself telling the FBI agent that one of the targeted gangsters had repeatedly refused to take part in a drug deal that Spinelli was pushing. The gangster, Spinelli is heard telling the agent, told him that he had sworn off cocaine trafficking years earlier.

"That's okay," the undercover G-man, using the name "Pete," is heard telling Spinelli, according to court records. "We can facilitate him to do it. This is like playing a chess game. We'll plant the seed, the seed will grow," he said. "Pete," sources say, was playing the role of a trucker with loads of stolen jewelry to sell who was also eager to get into the drug smuggling business.

Sources tell Gang Land that the recorder was also left running as Pete called the FBI "case agent," Theodore Otto, and told him they had a "very good day" in their meeting with the reluctant drug dealer, Brian Vaughan. Sources say Otto told them to "keep close" to Vaughan because the FBI had developed information that there "are people that are looking to hurt him if they can."

As it turns out, the only "hurt" Vaughan, 52, suffered was when he fell off a ladder at a construction site, landed on a rebar and broke his back. And try as they might, the feds were unable to make a new drug case against Vaughan. Instead, they charged him all over again in the new racketeering indictment with an old drug charge, one to which Vaughan had already pleaded guilty.

Spinelli, as Gang Land previously reported, is not exactly a Mensa member. Court records say his IQ is 63 and some of his past run-ins with the law have been closer to the antics of Huntz Hall in the Bowery Boys than John Gotti. But despite his failings with the tape recorder, Spinelli helped the feds pick up some rich details of the family's infighting.

For one, sources say that the case revealed that the crime family status of Vaughan, a longtime Luchese enforcer and former bodyguard-chauffeur for acting boss Matthew (Matty) Madonna, dropped dangerously low after the November 15, 2013 rubout of former Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish, who had served as "muscle" and a loanshark collector for Madonna. Following the hit, Madonna's own standing in the borghata was similarly damaged.

Three days after Meldish was killed, Vaughan told Spinelli that Meldish was "best friends with Matty" but that he had been on the outs with Madonna because "he fucked Matty out of a lot of money," according to an FBI summary of the recording obtained by Gang Land. Spinelli had begun working for the feds in 2012, but hadn't been active for more than six months when the FBI wired him up and told him to get whatever info he could about the killing from Vaughan.

During the November 18, 2013 talk, Vaughan said that even though Madonna had told him "to stay away from" Meldish, he didn't think that the Lucheses did it. He believed, he told Spinelli, that Genovese mobsters had killed Meldish for "disrespecting" the crime family by "walking onto (construction) jobs" that the Genoveses controlled.

Despite Vaughan's opinion, the feds, and a grand jury in White Plains, say otherwise. Madonna, family underboss Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea, and his son Steven (Stevie Junior) Crea, are charged with ordering soldier Christopher Londonio and associate Terrence Caldwell to whack Meldish, who was killed as he sat in his car in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx.

Spinelli, who has tape-recorded several discussions about the murder during the investigation, is expected to testify about that, and other racketeering charges against some of the defendants at their trial, which is scheduled to begin in March.

Spinelli's faux pas with his recording device occurred nine months after the murder, in August of 2014, when Spinelli and Pete were driving away from a meeting they had with Vaughan at a Dunkin Donuts in Matawan, NJ. They were there to discuss a plan to unload a cache of Rolex and other high-end watches to a mob-connected jeweler on the Bowery.

Sources say that during the drive, after Pete reported they had "a very good day" with Vaughan, Otto, who was in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office that day, told Spinelli and "Pete," the undercover agent whom the informer had previously introduced to Vaughan, "to keep Brian in the loop" and to really "get to know Brian" in the next "six or eight months."

"He fits with our story," said Pete, according to Gang Land's sources. "We will get Brian good and we'll open the door for cocaine," said Pete, noting that even though Vaughan was "a little suspicious" at first and initially said he "wasn't interested" in swag jewelry, "a little later on though, he said he likes Rolexes."

"We have to look at the bigger picture," said Pete. "It was a good day, a very good day. We're beginning to open the door with him."

"Thanks," said Otto, adding, "You did a great job today," according to Gang Land's sources.

Attorney James DiPietro publicly disclosed the screwup by Spinelli as he sought leniency for Vaughan for a 2011 coke deal at his sentencing in August. The lawyer noted that Vaughan was being sentenced for the same drug case he had previously pleaded guilty to in Brooklyn Federal Court.

He also noted that in every taped conversation that he and co-counsel Joseph Gentile had listened to from 2013 to 2015, every time Spinelli tried to get him to either sell cocaine or "aid and abet" Spinelli and Pete "in the sale of cocaine, each time Brian Vaughan declined."

"The coup," DiPietro told White Plains Federal Judge Cathy Seibel, "was on August 14th of 2014, when the cooperator, Mr. Spinelli, forgot to shut the recording device off. And the cooperator tells Pete, 'He doesn't wanna do coke.'"

The defense lawyer, a former narcotics prosecutor, told Seibel the agent's reply equating the arrest of a drug dealer to a chess game was "a little shocking," and stressed that despite numerous efforts to drag Vaughan into a coke deal, his client "declined not only selling, he declined facilitating."

Two months later, on October 30, 2014, DiPietro said, Spinelli "comes back to him and says, 'Hey Brian, I looked at the Sentencing Guidelines. It's not so bad. You're looking at 36 to 48 months.' My client said, 'Leave me alone.'"

And in January of 2015, when Spinelli again tried to get Vaughan into a coke deal, said DiPietro, Vaughan replied, "I'm not getting involved in that. I did eight years for four-and-a-half ounces. I don't wanna get involved in that," the lawyer stated, adding that Vaughan then told Spinelli: "Go to work."

Vaughan's sentencing guidelines for the 2011 drug deal, and for gambling, loansharking and extortion charges going back to 2005, were 78-to-97 months. DiPietro pressed for 78 months, the sentence recommended by the Probation Department, noting that despite five major surgeries, Vaughan was still permanently disabled from his construction accident.

DiPietro also disputed the contention by prosecutors — who sought the 97-month maximum — that Vaughan had a net worth of $953,000. That amount, DiPietro pointed out, was the total amount of his client's settlement for his back injury, and that Vaughan's wife and three children receive $2000 a month from it, and depend on it for their daily needs.

DiPietro also noted that Vaughan resisted a return to drug dealing despite being hard up for dough — as evidenced by Spinelli's tape recordings — that he had taken $20,000 from his IRA account to pay his doctor bills. Discussing his trips "back and forth to doctors," Vaughan told Spinelli: "I can't take the cab. I can't afford the cab. I take the bus."

Despite the hard luck story, Judge Seibel, a former federal prosecutor, wasn't particularly impressed. While she credited Vaughan with stepping back from his drug-dealing ways, she stated that he should have done so sooner. She sentenced him to seven years — six months more than the minimum.

She did not have anything to say about the FBI's repeated pressure to make Vaughan do a drug deal he steadily rejected. Vaughan was sentenced the following day in Brooklyn Federal Court to a separate five years, a sentence that will run concurrently.

Asked yesterday about the impact of the tape recorded remarks by the FBI agents that were picked up by Spinelli's recording device, DiPietro would only say: "It was pretty apparent that Mr. Spinelli, also known as Isaac, got a tongue lashing from the FBI about that. He was very cognizant to state on every subsequent recording that we listened to that he was shutting off the recording device at the end of the session."

Sometimes, even a mob associate with a stated IQ of 63 — what Spinelli's lawyer argued was a mitigating factor in seeking leniency for him when he was found guilty in 1998 of plotting to kill a Brooklyn mom-of-three back six years earlier — is capable of learning an important lesson.

Forgetful Mob Turncoat Teaches The Drug Business To Undercover G-Man

Mob turncoat Robert (Isaac) Spinelli behaved like a dullard when he forgot to shut down his recording device at the end of a long work day back on August 14, 2014. But, despite his modest intellectual abilities, Spinelli is clearly a knowledgeable guy when it comes to drug dealing, according to a snippet of the conversation he had about the topic with an undercover FBI agent.

Spinelli's insight into the money-making business that is officially banned by the mob but is a staple of many wiseguys, came after he and the G-man undercover agent with whom he was working had driven back and forth from New Jersey to Staten Island to meet up with Luchese mobster Joseph (Joey Glasses) Datello and with mob associate Brian Vaughan, Gang Land has learned.

"If you want to get into these guys, you should go with heroin, not cocaine," Spinelli said at one point during what they both thought was a private talk but which has been heard by several, if not many, of the defense lawyers in the 19 defendant case.

"Why heroin and not cocaine," asked the undercover agent who was using the name Pete.

"They always go with heroin. You can sell it by the ounce. It's the direction we want to go with Joe," Spinelli continued, in an apparent reference to Datello, whom they had met at his Staten Island home before meeting up with Vaughan in the Garden State.

"Do you break it down like cocaine?" asked Pete, sounding like a newbie in the drug business, but who may have just been trying to flesh out whatever insight Spinelli had.

"You can step on it," Spinelli replied. "You can make one kilo into two kilos. It's more money," he said, noting: "The Chinese sell heroin at 700 grams, not 1000. I don't know why."

Pete: What do you break it down with?
RS: Quinine
Pete: What color is it, brown? What do you do with this? Do you snort it? Do you inject it?
RS: You do both.
Pete: When you buy heroin, do you use a code name?
RS: Everyone had their own name. They put a stamp on it.

Datello, who pleaded guilty to racketeering charges including attempted murder, extortion and drug dealing in September, faces a recommended prison term between 14 and 17 years when he is sentenced in January.

Meanwhile, Spinelli isn't the only figure in the case who forgets important things.

This month, Judge Cathy Seibel, who's been presiding over the case against a total of 19 Luchese gangsters, declared that she has essentially no memory of a 1991 Luchese crime family investigation that she worked on, during which underboss Stevie Wonder Crea was mentioned, when she was an organized crime prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office, and rejected a Crea motion to recuse her from the case.

Maybe the judge should listen to some old tapes; they might, as lawyers say, refresh a recollection or two.

New Book By Our Man Andy Opens A Window On The Mob's Ruling Body

Mafia Commission Book JacketUsing the historic Commission case as his linchpin, Andy Petepiece, our resident mob historian and author of our monthly Ask Andy feature, has published The Mafia Commission: A History of the Board of Directors of La Cosa Nostra, a new book about the ruling body of the American Mafia that was set up back in 1931 to oversee and rule the nationwide criminal organization.

Petepiece uses anecdotes about early mob leaders — Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Joe Bonanno — and the seven mobsters who were hit with 100-year prison terms, including the still incarcerated Carmine (Junior) Persico, to detail not only the controversial Commission case but also the history of the American Mafia from its early days to the present.

Gang Land readers are well aware that five mobsters sentenced to 100 years died behind bars; that Luchese consigliere Christopher (Christy Tick) Furnari was released from prison before he passed away this year, and that Persico, the 85-year-old Colombo boss, is unlikely to ever return to his old haunts in Brooklyn or upstate Saugerties, NY.

Andy names three mobsters known as Boss of Bosses — Giuseppe (The Clutch Hand) Morello, Salvatore (Toto) D'Aquila, and Giuseppe (Joe The Boss) Masseria — before the murder of the fourth Boss of Bosses, Salvatore Maranzano on September 10, 1931, led to the establishment of a seven-member Commission, which later became a five-man panel of New York bosses.

In his well-researched, 200-page book, Andy writes that the Gallo-Profaci war was instigated by two Commission members, and discusses the role that top-echelon FBI informer Greg Scarpa had in that bloody feud. Andy also names bosses who were at the 1957 mob conclave in Apalachin, NY, but weren't caught by the state police, running through the woods. That's right, Andy fingers the ones who got away.

Andy details the Commission's rules about inducting new members, installing a new family boss, the murder of a boss, omerta, and narcotics trafficking. The author explains why these regulations were put in place and then, using historical examples, demonstrates whether they were valid or ignored.

He writes that the Commission's ironclad rules against drug dealing, and the penalties that were imposed for it over the years, like prison terms that judges impose, were anything but uniform. The Chicago Outfit whacked gangster Chris Cardi for dealing in 1975; but a few years later the Gambinos merely put Peter (Little Pete) Tambone "on a shelf" for his own transgressions.

Meanwhile, the big boys — two Genovese family bosses, and the underbosses of three other New York families, including Commission trial defendant Salvatore (Tom Mix) Santoro — never paid any price even though they were convicted drug dealers, he writes.

In addition to Capone, Luciano, and Bonanno, Petepiece outlines the lives and careers of the other four original Commission members — Stefano Magaddino, the Buffalo boss, and the leaders of the families we now identify as the Colombo, Gambino and Luchese families, Joseph (The Olive Oil King) Profaci, Vincent Mangano, and Thomas Gagliano.

Andy, a former social studies teacher who's researched Cosa Nostra activities for more than 50 years told Gang Land he decided to write a history of the Mafia Commission because "there's no other book out there that focuses directly on this important subject concerning Italian American organized crime."

In The Mafia Commission, the author provides details about the testimony and exhibits during the trial along with profiles of all the defendants, their defense attorneys, including the attorney who assisted Persico in representing himself, and the three prosecutors in the case.

The book discusses the defendants who did not go to trial, including Bonanno boss Philip Rastelli, who was severed from the case, Gambino underboss Aniello (Neil) Dellacroce, who died of natural causes, and family boss Paul (Big Paul) Castellano, whose death two weeks later in midtown Manhattan was less natural.

The book does not include every detail about the trial, but it adds valuable information to the knowledge base of Cosa Nostra, although it leaves open for debate, whether there is still a ruling body that regulates mob activities in New York and other areas where wiseguys are said to still exist.

"There ain't no Commission," turncoat Mafia boss Joseph Massino testified in 2011. "When Paul Castellano got killed in December of 1985, there was never another Commission meeting."

But Petepiece notes that Gambino family defector Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano reported that the Gambinos, Genoveses and Lucheses had a Commission meeting in 1988, and that there is evidence that it was still making policy years later, in 1996 and 1997.

Andy writes that there hasn't been a Commission meeting of all five bosses since the 1980s when Persico "was locked up." The families still meet, he writes, often in "twos or threes" with "someone representing the boss."

[Cheech]

that guy Vaughan got fucked

[slimshady_007]

Great gangland. The Lucchese case is slowly falling apart. I expect guys to get acquitted of some charges in the case.

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Great gangland. The Lucchese case is slowly falling apart. I expect guys to get acquitted of some charges in the case.

I agree. Spinelli can be torn up on cross-examine.
And Vaughn clearly wanted nothing to do with any
drug deals. I wondered who was wired to cause the
Lucchese leadership to get indicted. Now I know.
With an IQ of 63, Spinelli best be kept off the witness
stand if possible.

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

[slimshady_007]

Great gangland. The Lucchese case is slowly falling apart. I expect guys to get acquitted of some charges in the case.

I agree. Spinelli can be torn up on cross-examine.
And Vaughn clearly wanted nothing to do with any
drug deals. I wondered who was wired to cause the
Lucchese leadership to get indicted. Now I know.
With an IQ of 63, Spinelli best be kept off the witness
stand if possible.

The recent government witnesses have been awful. Spinelli, petey bs, john rubio, etc.

[thegunners]

Why was Madonnas standing in the family damaged after the Meldish hit?

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Why was Madonnas standing in the family damaged after the Meldish hit?

Good question. Also, why was Vaughn's standing diminished? A serious claim
not to be backed up with any info on the reason why.

[Frank]

Why was Madonnas standing in the family damaged after the Meldish hit?

I wonder if he was knocked down as acting boss

[newera_212]

pretty crazy shit with this guy Vaughn. not sure if I can wrap my head around it. they're charging and sentencing him on a drug beef that he already pleaded guilty to in the past? was this the same rap he talked about already serving 8 years for? what are they charging him based on now? all the new shit...the tapes with Spinelli and the UC "Pete" all have the guy not even entertaining the stuff, turning down the deal multiple times, and finally saying "I dont want to get involved with drugs. go get a job"

then the guy gets hurt on a jobsite and cant work anymore, cant afford to take a cab to his doctors, they're talking about his settlement which hasnt even been realized in it's entirety yet as if it was liquid, etc...

who is this guy and why are they fucking him so much? i could see if they wanna squeeze him to get to Madonna, but obviously they felt they had enough to charge Madonna already, so thats a wash.

maybe i need to read the article again lmao. i dont understand why they're fucking with this guy so much

very interesting that Madonna's standing fell after Meldish. fell in whos eyes? who else was above him to even insinuate that? i doubt the rank and file guys were big fans of Meldish and got mad over it lol. Im guessing maybe the Bronx Genovese got involved since it seems they had something going on with Meldish too...

its crazy this literal retard set the wheels in motion to bring down a whole admin. especially given his relation to a faction that's been all but dead. those Canarsie guys that Gaspipe had hanging around. this guy was able to just slide right back into the mix, hanging out with captains, etc... its nuts

[JOJO]

This Vaughn guy got screwed royally. they shouldnt be able to do that to him

[Pogo The Clown]

Ask Andy has a book coming out. It will be a nice stocking stuffer for some of you guys this Christmas.


Pogo

[TommyNoto]

What a nice piece of info about Vaughn speculating the Genovese did it

I wonder if he really believed that