Gangland November 2nd 2023

[Dr031718]

Stevie Blue Set To Face Off With His Trial Lawyer In The 'Smoking Gun Murder' Case

Stephen (Stevie Blue) LoCurto says he wants to help his current lawyer grill Harry Batchelder, the defense attorney who represented him at his 2006 trial. Batchelder, 87, is the main witness in the government's efforts to block the Bonanno mobster from overturning his conviction and life sentence for the 1986 "smoking gun murder" of a rival gangster, and getting a 20-year term he says he deserves.

Brooklyn Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara hasn't yet ruled on LoCurto's letter motion. But Batchelder, who is slated to testify at a hearing on Monday via a remote hookup from a federal building in New Hampshire where he now lives, told Gang Land yesterday that he doesn't care who questions him when he takes the witness stand.

In an exclusive interview, Batchelder said that "Stevie was very much involved" in his case and "made no bones about" the fact that he "had beaten the case on his own testimony" in a state court trial, and he "was not" going to accept a plea offer of 20 years in the federal case. LoCurto told him he was "going to take the stand" and testify in his own defense, Batchelder recalled.

"From the very first day that I met him," Batchelder said, "he was adamant. He said, 'I'm not taking a deal. We're gonna use a two trap approach. I'm gonna go to trial. At the same time, you're going to negotiate with them, see if you can get anything below 20 years.' They offered him 20," Batchelder continued, "but he said he wouldn't take it. He said he would take 15."

Since shortly after he was found guilty at trial, LoCurto, 63, claims that he would have taken a 20-year-plea deal if he hadn't been given bad legal advice from an appeals specialist who was "of counsel" to Batchelder. She advised Stevie Blue that the longest sentence he could receive even if convicted at trial was 20 years.

By telling Gang Land that "they offered him 20," Batchelder seems to put a crimp in the government's contention that LoCurto is legally barred from winning his motion since there is no way he can argue he would have taken a 20-year-deal since he was never offered one in return for a guilty plea.

Batchelder stated he recalls discussing a 20-year-plea offer with assistant U.S. attorneys Greg Andres and John Buretta.

"I negotiated with Greg Mad Dog (a nickname that several defense lawyers used to refer to the relentless, hard-driving Andres at the time) and he would not move off it," Batchelder recalled. "And John would not move off it. And I could understand their reasoning. Stevie let it be known among the cohorts that because he was a terrific witness, he had beaten his prior case."

In 2006, when LoCurto, who had been acquitted in 1987 of the murder of Joseph Platia in Manhattan Supreme Court, was found guilty of the slaying he fired Batchelder. When he did, Stevie Blue was simply carrying out the game plan he had outlined long before he went to trial, attorney Batchelder told Gang Land.

"Look at it my way," Batchelder recalled LoCurto stating. "He said, 'I go to trial and if I blow it, I can always say you were ineffective. And if I can sell it, I sell it.'"

"I could understand that," said Batchelder, a Virginia Law School grad who passed the New York state bar in 1966 and worked for the Justice Department from 1969 to 1979, the last seven years as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan. "He had beaten the case before," he continued, noting that not many defendants can make that claim.

"The only problem," with LoCurto's game plan, one that the attorney was unable to dissuade his client from pursuing, "was there was no organized crime connection in the state case," said Batchelder. He also noted that Stevie Blue's lawyer in the state case, Joseph Benfante, had done "a great job."

"In the federal case," Batchelder continued, "that wasn't so; Stevie was (alleged to be) a soldier in the family, (and) the order came down from the top, I think it was (from Bonanno boss Joseph) Massino, to kill Platia. That testimony (by turncoat mobsters, Joseph D'Amico and Frank (Curly) Lino) was critical and it was bombshell testimony."

In fingering LoCurto for the Platia killing, D'Amico and Lino stated that they had jokingly referred to it as the "smoking gun murder" case because Stevie Blue was arrested by police minutes after the murder with the still-warm murder weapon in his pocket.

Batchelder agreed with the claim by LoCurto's attorney Bernard Freamon that appeals specialist Laura Oppenheim was "of counsel" to him and that she had told Stevie Blue that she believed that a recently passed amendment to the racketeering statute would have capped a sentence for a racketeering murder at 20 years.

"He's right about Laura's opinion, but he's wrong about what happened," said Batchelder, noting that he has "great respect for Laura."

He told her to prepare a written report on why LoCurto would "be limited to 20 years" if found guilty. When she did, he and Oppenheim went together to the Metropolitan Detention Center to discuss the very important issue with Stevie Blue in person.

"She gave her opinion and said that it might be possible," said Batchelder. "I told her, 'I don't accept this opinion. Stevie can take it for what it's worth but that's never going to happen. There have been three decisions since the amended statute that say you could get life, and John Walker is the chief judge (of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals) and there is no way he is going to let the Second Circuit cap that at 20 years.'"

"I said, 'Absolutely not.'" said Batchelder. "She was entitled to her opinion," but "I was the lawyer in charge," he said. He noted that "unlike the other two people in the room, I had a personal relationship with Walker (they were both AUSAs in Manhattan in the 1970s.) I knew he was an arch conservative" and that "there was no way he was going to agree with her opinion."

Batchelder, who represented a wide range of clients — they included a terrorist in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and an attorney in a 1981 trial in which U.S. Senator Harrison Williams was convicted of bribing an imaginary Sheik played by a G-man in the FBI Abscam sting operation — over the years, knows a bit about conservative viewpoints.

Before going to work for his Uncle Sam, he toiled four years for Nixon (yes, that Nixon), Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander and Mitchell (yes, that Mitchell), according to an online bio.

Batchelder is slated to testify Monday afternoon, following the expected leadoff testimony by LoCurto, and one or two additional witnesses that Freamon, a Seton Hall law professor who's been Stevie Blue's court-appointed pro se lawyer for about 10 years, says he may call.

In a letter to the Court on Monday, Freamon stated LoCurto will prove that Oppenheim was "a central figure" on LoCurto's defense team who gave him "defective and objectively unreasonable advice" on "important legal issues" that Batchelder did not adequately correct for his client and that because of that Stevie Blue failed to accept a plea offer of 20 years from the government.

Feds Seize Award For Wrongful Death Of Wiseguy's Son As Payment For Racketeering Fine

When Luchese capo John (Big John) Castellucci got three years in prison for racketeering in 2019, he knew he had to do the time. And he knew he had to do three years of supervised release when he got out in January of last year. But paying his $150,000 fine was something else. Like many wiseguys, he never paid any part of it. Until now, Gang Land has learned.

The reason is a sad one. Castellucci was due to receive $28,262 as his share of a settlement for the wrongful death of his son in 2016 while he was locked up at Rikers, and an additional $18,476 for the funeral costs. But Uncle Sam got there first, and seized the $46,738 as partial payment of the $152,158 he owed the government as of September 22. That included interest and a $100 assessment that all defendants are dunned when they are convicted of a federal crime.

It's not likely that Big John will ever pay off any part of the remaining $105,000. But his debt to the federal government could very well end up being satisfied by another still pending lawsuit — one of three stemming from the tragic death of his son, Eugene (Sonny) Castelle.

Sonny was the namesake nephew of his dad's brother, fellow Luchese mobster Eugene (Boobsie) Castelle. But Sonny did not follow their footsteps, or those of another uncle, Anthony, who was also inducted into the crime family.

Instead, he wrestled with his own demons – a drug addiction that ultimately led to his death.

It began exactly seven years ago, on November 2, 2016, when Castelle, 27, was jailed at Riker's Island for violating the terms of a no-jail rehabilitation plea deal he had received for an arrest in Staten Island. Castelle had relapsed and was busted in Florida for drug possession.

Six days after he was locked up, Castelle died of heart failure. Complaining of chest pains and difficulty breathing, Sonny had asked at about 2AM to see a doctor. He was refused and the correction officer on duty sent him back to his cell. Six hours later, Castelle was found dead at about 8 AM lying on his bunk according to court filings.

Castelle, a recovering drug addict, had a heart condition and Rikers staffers had "prescribed an electrocardiogram" that "would have identified Castelle's heart condition, which caused a decrease in blood flow to his heart" when Sonny was jailed. But the EKG "was never performed," according to the Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit filed by attorneys Rob Bickner and Charles Fitzgerald.

Instead, a Rikers staffer prescribed a combination of Librium and methadone, medications Castelle took on each of the five days before he died. But the lawsuit asserted that the mixture of the two depressants can be a deadly combination for a person with a "pre-existing heart condition," according to the wrongful death lawsuit filed by his mom, Lucille Tirado.

"Despite the lack of an EKG," Castelle was given Librium and methadone, which "provide a major risk of death when taken together," according to the lawsuit.

The amended complaint notes that the "Librium label includes a specific warning against being prescribed along with an opiate, like methadone: 'WARNING: RISKS FROM CONCOMITANT USE WITH OPIOIDS. Concomitant use of benzodiazepines and opioids may result in profound sedation, respiratory depression, coma, and death.'"

On the evening of November 7, 2016, shortly after he received his "last dosage of Librium . . . at 8:58 PM," lawyers Rickner and Fitzgerald wrote, "Castelle started experiencing symptoms of the medical condition for which he would eventually die" and "requested medical attention from the Correction Officer on duty in Dorm 4."

"In the early morning hours of November 8," the lawyers wrote, "Castelle was assisted by a fellow inmate to the 'Bubble' i.e. the Correction Officer's duty station, to again request medical attention for his symptoms" but the guard "was asleep" and "annoyed that he had been woken up."

The officer "cursed at Castelle and ordered him back to his bunk," where "he died in his sleep," according to the federal wrongful death suit that New York City settled for $115,000.

The feds, the city and Tirado's lawyers each declined to discuss what seemed to Gang Land like a puny settlement for a pretty straightforward wrongful death case.

A search of court records indicates that NYC was able to win a separate state court lawsuit for wrongful death on a very important technicality — namely that Tirado's original lawyer Jeffrey Guzman and his firm Krentsel Guzman Herbert allegedly failed to serve notices of claim against NYC and its Health & Hospitals Corporation.

"The negligent failure to serve the notices of claim resulted in the complete dismissal of the claims against the City of New York, and the total bar on any claims against (the HHC,)" according to Tirado's lawsuit, charging "legal malpractice," which Guzman and his law firm deny.

If Tirado wins her lawsuit, Castellucci will receive half of the award, since he and Sonny's mom are his only heirs. In the meantime, the federal government will surely be watching and ready to attach whatever is necessary to satisfy Big John's remaining debt, plus interest, of course.

Grim Reaper Calls Genovese Wiseguy Tony Rotolo

Following a long career in New Jersey and Florida, the sporting life is over for Anthony (Tony the Guinea) Rotolo, Gang Land has learned. The longtime Genovese wiseguy with a decidedly politically incorrect nickname was called out by the Grim Reaper two weeks ago at the age of 81.

Rotolo was once overheard telling a loanshark victim that he drove a black car with a bat in the trunk. And he told an informer he knew how to use it. He was quoted as saying that he "enjoyed using a baseball bat because if you hit the person correctly it sounds like a home run."

Rotolo emigrated from a small town in Calabria to Jersey City in 1953. He became a close pal of several powerful New Jersey-based mobsters including Louis (Bobby) Manna, the 93-year-old former consigliere who's been behind bars since 1989 for plotting to kill Gambino boss John Gotti.

In 1994, Rotolo was convicted of putting an extortion victim's head in a toilet bowl and threatening to kill him in the Garden State. He relocated to the Sunshine State a few years later, but was not afraid to speak his mind and boast that he was a "made member" of the Genovese crime family in New Jersey, according to filings in Orlando Federal Court.

Rotolo did so, according to a court filing, when he told one of his loanshark customers — he allegedly had about 30 — to inform any colleagues or associates who wanted to borrow money that Rotolo "was a 'made guy' and that the money came from his New Jersey 'family.'"

Word apparently got around. In 2001, the feds arrested and charged Rotolo and his father-in-law, who were then living in Edgewater, Florida, with loansharking, extortion and money laundering. They also allegedly had a high tech sideline operating a multi-million dollar a year business stealing satellite signal cards that were used to access Direct TV and then reprogramming and selling the cards for $500.

At a detention hearing, FBI agent Gary Borak testified that Rotolo threatened deadbeat loanshark customers with violence when they were late with payments. When the agents searched his 1990 black Cadilac DeVille, they found a bat in the trunk, the agent said.

Tony the Guinea pleaded guilty in January of 2005. He apparently remained a wiseguy in good standing with the Genovese crime family even though he admitted publicly, in his plea agreement, that he was a member of that powerful borgata.

His plea agreement with the feds allowed him to seek a downward departure from the seven years he faced for loansharking and possessing two illegal handguns that were seized from him when he was arrested. But the judge wasn't buying that, and she gave him seven years when he faced the music three months later, on April 25, his 63d birthday.

"What a birthday present," Rotolo said when he heard the sentence. But other than that, he took the bad news calmly, according to accounts of the proceeding by two newspaper reporters. Instead of the malocchio, the tough guy from New Jersey gave each of them separate quotes.

"I deserve it because I was stupid," Rotolo told Mark Johnson of the Daytona Beach News Journal about his sentence, adding that he was suckered into committing the crime "by a former friend turned government informant."

"I felt like dropping dead," he told Pedro Ruz Guttierez of the Orlando Sentinel, adding, "How would you feel if you got that sentence?"

When the newsman asked him about his "criminal history and past in New Jersey, Rotolo grinned and said ties to Italian crime families were exaggerated by authorities in Central Florida," Guttierez wrote. "I'm not a bad guy; that's for sure," Rotolo said. "I'm not a mobster. I was a wild kid."

He may have been a wild kid, but authorities have said he was also a convicted mobster who owned several bars and restaurants in the Garden State through straw men. He also owned a scrap metal business in Jersey City that earned him the nickname as the King Of Scrap Metal in New Jersey.

After his release from prison in 2011, Rotolo had no further issues with the law, and returned to the Garden State, where he lived in Bayonne, and then Middletown.

He was a loving and cherished dad, grandfather, and great-grandfather, according to an obituary posted by the Bayonne Funeral Home. It noted that Rotolo had been a laborer in the scrap metal industry and entrepreneur of several businesses. Following a two-day wake and a funeral mass at St. Henry's Church in Bayonne, he was laid to rest at the Fairview Cemetery in Fairview.

Rotolo is survived by daughters, Maria, Antoinette, and Lisa, 10 grandchildren, Louis, Antonia, Giovanni, Amanda, Connor, Anthony, Olivia, John, Darren and Nino; six great grandchildren, Maria, Giovanni, Caden, Catherine, Christopher, and Adriana; a sister, Nancy, and many nieces and nephews.

Editor's Note: Gang Land is off next week. We'll return with more real stuff about organized crime in two weeks, on November 16.

[TommyGambino]

Surely the money should have gone to the mother of Castellucis son?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks for posting Doc.

[Blunts]

Thanks for posting.

[Tonyd621]

The state should let him have that money. They are responsible. Sleeping on the job and annoyed because you got woken up...that's f*cked up. Then the seize money. Then they arrest people giving out loans to people who seek them out, turn into a OC/RICO case and your doing 5 years, but yet the govt is the one that hired that guy...

[Tonyd621]

It's like when I was the military... the most hard core religious zealots who planted a bomb that paralyzed 2 soldiers get captured....where do they go? To rhe part of the prison in the FOB that has xbox/movie screens/mini hand carts of Häagen-Dazs ice cream/fritz lay assortments/music etc..meanwhile I'm running on rip it energy drinks with no sleep for day(s) and my sleeping quarters is in the dirt with a rock as a pillow. That's the govt for ya

[Cheech]

The state should let him have that money. They are responsible. Sleeping on the job and annoyed because you got woken up...that's f*cked up. Then the seize money. Then they arrest people giving out loans to people who seek them out, turn into a OC/RICO case and your doing 5 years, but yet the govt is the one that hired that guy...

Yup

[AntComello]

The state should let him have that money. They are responsible. Sleeping on the job and annoyed because you got woken up...that's f*cked up. Then the seize money. Then they arrest people giving out loans to people who seek them out, turn into a OC/RICO case and your doing 5 years, but yet the govt is the one that hired that guy...

Yup

It doesn’t matter because it’s the family of a mobster. You would think the government would give it up by now and focus on the real problems NY currently has. But no they’re scum bags and just want to make a case to advance their career.