Gangland December 20th

[Dr031718]

Convicted Purple Gang Killer Eyeing His Freedom

Joseph Meldish, the convicted Purple Gang assassin suspected of whacking dozens of rival drug dealers and other victims during the heyday of the East Harlem-based gang of drug merchants and Luchese and Genovese wiseguys in the 1970s and '80s, may be back on the streets soon if his court appointed lawyer has her way, Gang Land has learned.

And the attorney's plan isn't a pipe dream. She plans to file a motion, she told Gang Land, that mirrors one by Meldish codefendant Kimberly Hanzlik, whose conviction for the 1999 murder of Joseph Brown was vacated last month after the Bronx District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Bureau (CIB) determined that it was "based on an unreliable identification" of her by Brown's wife.

The special conviction review unit found that the account of prosecution witness Eileen Brown that she saw Hanzlik in Frenchy's Bar in the Throggs Neck section on March 21, 1999 minutes before a masked gunman walked in and pumped eight bullets into Brown was coaxed by a now deceased NYPD detective, Kevin Tracy.

According to testimony at the trial, which took place in February of 2011, nearly 12 years after the killing, Meldish went to the bar to kill Brown's brother, Thomas, who had filed an attempted burglary charge against Meldish three weeks earlier. Hanzlik, his girlfriend, had walked into the bar, then walked out and told Meldish where Joseph Brown, his lookalike brother was sitting.

Meldish, 68, was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. He is currently housed at Eastern, the state prison in Ulster County. He won't be eligible for parole until 2032. Two years after Joseph's conviction, his brother Michael, the ex-Purple Gang leader, was shot and killed as he sat behind the wheel of his car in November of 2013 by a Luchese family hit team — soldier Chris Londonio and associate Terrence Caldwell — that was convicted of federal murder charges and sentenced to life in prison.

Hanzlik, 59, who received 20 years to life, was released two days before Thanksgiving.

The CIB also determined that a former Joe Meldish cohort, David Thiong, who testified that he drove Meldish and Hanzlik to Frenchy's Bar, and that Hanzlik went into the bar, came out and told Meldish where Brown was seated, had given Tracy and his partner a different account when they interviewed him shortly after the March 21, 1999 killing.

The DA's review of the case began in 2021 when Hanzlik's attorney Irving Cohen told the CIB that his client wasn't even at Frenchy's Bar that day. His claim jibed with a previously undisclosed police document. The document "(a so-called DD5) from 1999 that contains information by the getaway driver stating that Hanzlik was not present at the time of the homicide," according to a news release by Bronx DA Darcel Clark.

"The discovery of new information," Clark said, "casts doubt on the integrity of her conviction, and we cannot stand by it. I realize this causes pain and anguish for the victim's family, but in the interest of justice, we are dismissing the indictment against Ms. Hanzlik."

The CIB's investigation also raised questions about the testimony of the prosecution's key witness, getaway driver Thiong, who had initially told detectives that Hanzlik wasn't at the crime scene. Despite that finding, the DA's office says that it is standing by its conviction of Meldish.

The attorney for Meldish, Molly Booth, who toils for the Center for Appellate Litigation, a Manhattan-based non-profit legal defense firm that represents indigent clients, told Gang Land only that she is "planning to file a motion to vacate the conviction of Mr. Meldish based on serious problems with his conviction, including those raised by Ms. Hanzlik."

Gang Land expects that in her motion to vacate her client's conviction, Booth will argue that Mrs. Brown's now discredited testimony was crucial evidence against Meldish as well as Hanzlik. Coupled with the withheld police report that Thiong had told detectives that Hanzlik wasn't involved in the homicide, the attorney is likely to argue that the indictment against Meldish should also be dismissed.

Meldish was arrested for his first slaying 50 years ago, at age 18, for which he copped a plea deal to manslaughter charges in 1976, and served three years behind bars.

Two years later, in September of 1981, according to a 2009 indictment that was later dismissed, he shot and killed a 23-year-old hoodlum named John Gioia outside a Bronx social club where they had begun feuding after Gioia lobbed a hand grenade at Meldish that didn't go off.

Meldish had a few skirmishes with rival gangsters and others in the 1980s and '90s, that did not cause him too much trouble with the law even though he would brazenly take fellow bar patrons' money off the bar to buy drugs. That's because he had a well-earned reputation as a violent and fearless loose cannon who would retaliate fiercely if his actions were challenged.

He did spend a short stretch behind bars for drug possession in 1988, according to NYPD Detective Lieutenant Sean O'Toole, who retired last year.

"He would go into bars and start taking people's money right off the bar," O'Toole told the New York Post in March of 2011, after Meldish had been convicted of Brown's murder. "If you argued with him, the next thing you know, he would be back with a baseball bat or he would start shooting," O'Toole told Post reporter Kirsten Conley.

Meldish's dispute with Thomas Brown, a drug dealer, stemmed from Brown's refusal to lend Meldish $20, according to trial testimony. After Meldish retaliated and burglarized Brown's apartment, he filed a complaint with police, which led to Meldish killing Brown's brother Joseph as he sat in Frenchy's Bar with his wife.

Mrs. Brown, who worked for the Bronx DA's office for more than 10 years, is furious about her former employer's decision to agree to vacate Hanzlik's conviction. Gang Land was unable to reach her, and she did not respond to a request to contact us. But she made her feelings clear to the Norwood News, a biweekly newspaper that serves several North Bronx neighborhoods.

"I testified. I saw her in the bar," she told the Norwood News. She told reporter David Greene that in agreeing to vacate Hanzlik's conviction, the DA's office was maligning the detective who had "passed away" because "he isn't here to defend himself."

She noted that Thiong testified that he drove Hanzlik to the bar and that she and Meldish "went into Frenchy's to kill Tommy Brown" but "Unfortunately, they got Joe Brown instead."

"Joe Meldish was fighting with my brother-in-law (Tommy,)" the widow said. "They were always fighting, and he wanted money from him, and he sold drugs. It was all about drugs and money. It had nothing to do with my husband or myself at the time; we were at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Her husband grew up in Throggs Neck, was a member of the Air Force Reserves, and was a "sandhog," a tunnel worker whom she met through mutual friends.

Her life, and that of her son, who was four-and-a-half years old when her husband was killed, has been "horrible" for the last 25 years she told Greene. "I'm without a husband. My son is without a father."

30 Months For Carmine Pizza, A Jekyll & Hyde Wiseguy Loyal To Two Families

The feds pulled out all the stops in a failed effort last week to give Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito some extra time behind bars. They wanted the Genovese wiseguy to serve more than three years — the high end of his sentencing guidelines — for racketeering charges that included threats to send a 300 pound mobster known as "Vegan" to assault a down-and-out gambler who owed $6500 to Polito's sports betting business.

But the 65-year-old mobster ducked the extra-heavy sentence, receiving a prison term of 30 months, the low end of his sentencing guidelines

In doing so, Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Vitaliano referred to Polito as a "Jekyll and Hyde" character — a man with loyalties to his own family, his wife Victoria and three children, Salvatore, Jacqueline and Anthony — as well as to the Genovese crime family that's headed by Liborio (Barney) Bellomo.

It was Polito's loyalty to his crime family that was the focus of prosecutors. In a court filing seeking an over-the-top prison term, they wrote that Polito was a violent gangster who has been committing crimes for the Genovese family for more than 30 years. Prison bars, they insisted, were the only thing that would stop the dyed-in-the-wool mobster from continuing to commit crimes for the powerful crime family.

In their pitch for a prison term above the recommended sentence in his plea agreement, assistant U.S. attorneys Anna Karamigios and Sean Sherman told Vitaliano that Polito had led a very charmed life when he faced the music for his crimes.

The wiseguy was convicted in 2003 of a 1994 murder, but escaped a life sentence for it when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the conviction on a technicality, they wrote. The killing had nothing to do with crime family business, the panel decided: Carmine Pizza's motive was to avoid paying a $60,000 debt.

During the investigation of the current case, the prosecutors told the judge, Polito was tape-recorded telling an underling that he was going to dispatch his friend Vegan "to have a talk with him." Vegan, according to Carmine Pizza, is soldier Dominick (Black Dom) Dionisio, who'd been trying to lose weight but was "still 300 and change" at the time.

The prosecutors argued that "a significant sentence in excess of 37 months is necessary" to punish Carmine Pizza for this racketeering conviction and to deter Polito from resuming his violent wiseguy ways when he completes his sentence.

The prosecutors wrote that Polito, who technically faced up to 20 years for pleading guilty to running several illegal gambling operations, including one at a Lynbrook ice cream parlor for 10 years that the feds said "typically earned over $10,000 a week," has "never faced serious consequences" for the 1994 killing and for a $1.5 million armed bank robbery he pulled in 1993.

Polito was arrested following an investigation that focused on several Long Island gambling operations run by the Genovese and Bonanno crime families. During the probe, Carmine Pizza was tape-recorded threatening to "break the face" of the gambler and telling an underling to warn the debtor that Polito would "put (him) under the fucking bridge" if he didn't come up with the money he owed the wiseguy.

After his arrest in this case, the prosecutors wrote, Polito "participated in the operation of yet another illegal gambling business from which he collected proceeds." They said he was also seen at "crime family meetings" with "numerous high-ranking members," including Alfonse (Ally Shades) Malangone, Anthony (Rom) Romanello, and John (Johnny Hollywood) Brescio.

"A sentence above 37 months imprisonment is warranted," the prosecutors argued. While free on bail and supposedly working, they wrote, Polito "demonstrated a lack of respect for the court" and clearly "demonstrated that he is a dedicated member of the Genovese crime family with no intention of renouncing his membership and leading a law-abiding life."

At his sentencing on Friday, Vitaliano gave Polito a tongue lashing, but agreed with the argument that was tendered by defense lawyer Gerald McMahon that 30 months, the low end of his 30-to-37 month sentencing guidelines was "sufficient, but not greater than necessary to fulfill the purposes of sentencing."

"The Mafia is a terrible scourge especially for us Italian Americans," Vitaliano told Polito, who emigrated to the U.S from Salerno Italy with his parents and three siblings when he was ten years old, and gravitated to the Genovese crime family in his early 30s, according to court filings.

The mobster stood mute as Vitaliano likened him to a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character and scolded him for his continued affiliation with the mob and commended him for raising three upstanding children and sentenced him to 30 months in prison, to be followed by three years of strict post-prison supervised release.

Before leaving the courtroom, Polito did say two words to Judge Vitaliano, who ordered him to self-surrender and begin his prison term on February 24: "Thank you."

Jo Jo Corozzo Checks Out At 82

Joseph (Jo Jo) Corozzo, a close pal and bodyguard-chauffeur for Mafia boss John Gotti, has succumbed to a spate of ailments that have dogged him in recent years. He was 82.

Corozzo was a prominent member of the crime family that gathered at the Ravenite Social Club with Gotti & Company to celebrate the Dapper Don's 1990 acquittal on assault charges that had been filed by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

Corozzo, who took over as consigliere for the Gambino family after Gotti and then-consigliere Frank (Frankie Loc) Locascio were sentenced to life for their federal murder convictions in 1992, reverted to his low-key persona three years later, following his own courtroom victory over the office of Mister District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau.

That happened on May 18, 1995, following a grueling four-month trial, when Corozzo's lawyer son Joseph engineered an acquittal for his dad of state racketeering charges that included gambling, loansharking and heading a crew of truck hijackers that specialized in stealing holiday goods and sold truckloads of turkeys for Thanksgiving and corned beef for St. Patrick's Day.

"The verdict came in at about 6PM and we all broke down," attorney Corozzo told Daily News reporter Virgina Breen. "After that," the lawyer continued, "we went to a Lower East Side restaurant and had a simple glass of wine."

Following his stunning acquittal in Manhattan Supreme Court, Jo Jo fared less well in legal battles he had with federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Orleans . He copped plea deals to various charges in 1996, 2008, and 2012, and ended up serving about nine years behind bars. His last stint ended in 2016.

In the Brooklyn case, in which he was sentenced to 46 months in prison, Corozzo unwittingly did an excellent job of alerting the FBI that one of its so-called top echelon informants, Lewis Kasman, the self-described adopted son of John Gotti, was a double dealing schemer while he was on the FBI's payroll for about two years.

The disclosure put an end to any thoughts the feds had of using Kasman as a trial witness against John (Junior) Gotti and any of the other wiseguys and associates he had tape-recorded for the FBI. Kasman, who was a secret FBI snitch for more than 10 years, agreed to be a cooperating witness in 2005 and tape recorded scores of conversations between then and 2007, according to court records.

But his downfall began in September of 2006, in the middle of a tape-recorded conversation when Jo Jo angrily accused the wired-up Kasman of stealing $80,000 in cash from a retired businessman friend whom the wiseguy had introduced to Kasman a few months earlier.

"Why did you rob my friend Harvey?" Corozzo asked Kasman during the tape recorded talk. "He's a legitimate guy, a friend of mine," the exasperated wiseguy complained.

For nine months, Kasman lied to his FBI handlers who quizzed him about Corozzo's complaint, denying that he had conned the retired businessman. Sources say Kasman's mark was promised a 12 to 13% return on his investment, with an immediate $2500 a week payback of his $80,000, but he later griped to Corozzo that Kasman had fleeced him.

Ultimately, months after the businessman complained to Corozzo, and the wiseguy had dressed down Kasman, the turncoat admitted taking the cash during a meeting that he did not record, and blowing it all, according to a report by FBI agents Robert Herbster and William Johnson. "He was not in a position to pay it back," the agents wrote.

Corozzo passed away on December 4, about eight months after his wife Rita died, according to the James Romanelli-Stephen Funeral Home in Ozone Park. Scores of mourners, including wiseguys and mob associates from all five families, said good bye to Jo Jo and paid their respects to his son Joseph and other family members at a three day wake last week.

Following a funeral mass at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary R.C. Church in Ozone Park, Corozzo was interred at the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, where his wife Rita was laid to rest in March.

In addition to his son Joseph, Corozzo is survived by his brothers Nicholas and Blaise, who are also inducted members of the Gambino crime family.

[Tonyd621]

Thank for posting. Black Dom is 300 lbs now? That's a ton of weight to put on.

[Amershire_Ed]

Thanks for posting

[NYNighthawk]

any updateson Kasman? is he going to write a book?

[DonPeppino386]

Thanks for posting!

[Proletarian187]

It will be interesting to follow Meldish.. His heyday is long gone but even at 68 yrs old I wouldn't be surprised to hear about him again. All the Luccheses who killed hos brother is locked up but Mancuso might wanna keep his eyes open..

Joey Meldish is a fucking madman with zero impulse control and seems like the kind of guy to give no fucks about going back to prison.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Love to see a list of the 'scores of wiseguys' who attended Jojo's wake.
Jerry drops the ball, again.

[johnny_scootch]

Love to see a list of the 'scores of wiseguys' who attended Jojo's wake.
Jerry drops the ball, again.

Maybe in a few years that info will come out but rarely if ever has come out a week or two after the event.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Love to see a list of the 'scores of wiseguys' who attended Jojo's wake.
Jerry drops the ball, again.

Maybe in a few years that info will come out but rarely if ever has come out a week or two after the event.

I find it odd Jerry wouldn't state. It's implied by my reading that he knows who. I severely doubt his source said 'scores of wiseguys attended, but I'm not saying who'. That makes zero sense.
My read.