Gangland February 27th 2025

[Dr031718]

It Wasn't Business, It Was Personal: Mob-Linked Businessman Manzo Says Jealousy, Not Racketeering, Sparked Bloody Assault Of Ex And Boyfriend

Tommy Manzo has filed an unusual appeal of his conviction for rewarding a Luchese soldier with a posh wedding reception in return for his bloody assault of the current husband of his ex-wife, Dina Manzo, the Reality TV star of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, Gang Land has learned.

Manzo doesn't deny giving wiseguy John Perna a gala wedding party for more than 300 guests at The Brownstone, Manzo's luxurious banquet hall in August of 2015. That event was the payoff a month after Perna bashed Dina's then-fiancé David Cantin over the head with a slapjack about 15 times, inflicting a gash in his head that required 11 staples to close the wound.

With its many twists and turns in the four-year-old case, the conviction of Manzo last year earned three assistant U.S. attorneys Gang Land’s Prosecutor of the Year in 2024. The trial came after Manzo turned down a zero-to-14 month plea deal even though he knew the feds had a video of the assault as well as tape recordings and testimony tying him to it.

But now, his appeals lawyers write that all the evidence against Manzo shows that the assault stemmed from a personal animus that their client had against his ex-wife, and Cantin, or both. And they argue that Manzo was wrongly convicted of committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering (VICAR) and sentenced to seven years behind bars.

"The sole motive Manzo arguably had to assault Cantin was entirely personal," his attorneys Anthony DiPietro, John Saykanic and Brendan White state in their detailed 86-page legal brief to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

"The prosecution against Manzo arose from circumstances as personal and non-enterprise-related as can possibly exist: a crime of passion against the married man who had willfully abandoned his obligations to his own wife and small children over a relationship with Manzo's estranged wife and stepdaughter," the lawyers wrote.

"Moreover, it occurred as part of an agreement as practical and non-enterprise-related as can be imagined: in exchange for Perna assaulting Cantin, Manzo would cater a wedding for Perna at a steep discount," the attorneys wrote, noting that the government's "chief cooperating witness," turncoat gangster Lorenzo Tripodi testified that "was Perna's reason for committing the assault."

That might be enough evidence "to prove the elements of a state law assault," the lawyers wrote, but "the evidence was legally insufficient to establish that Manzo, who was not alleged to be a member or associate of organized crime," was guilty of "commit(ing) a VICAR assault or had conspired with others to do so."

Since October, Manzo, 60, has been serving his sentence at the federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. Newark Federal Judge Susan Wigenton also fined Manzo $50,000 and gave him three years of post-prison supervised release when he completes his prison term which is slated to end in September of 2030.

There is no question the attack was personal. In a meeting with Perna and Tripodi, Manzo complained that "it was taking too long" for them to assault Cantin, Tripodi testified, and said, "You don't understand, I want you to cut his face. . . . I want you to cut his fucking face like this," Tripodi said, thrusting his arm forward.

"I am saying it calmly," Tripodi testified, "but that's not how he was saying it to me," he said. "He almost put the hand on my face to mark (the spot) that he wanted his face cut," he testified. He said Manzo told him and Perna: "I want him, every time he looks in the mirror, I want him to think of me."

The indictment also alleged that Manzo knew that Perna was a Luchese mobster who "would use his membership" to assault Cantin. During the trial, prosecutors asserted that Tripodi, as he testified, "compl(ied) with Perna's commands" to take part in the attack because he "was expected to" and "to maintain and enhance his position" with the Luchese crime family.

During her closing argument, prosecutor Kendall Randolph argued that Tripodi "wanted to be a soldier" and that Manzo, who had often "compared his childhood to Calogero in The Bronx Tale," the boy who brought sandwiches to the mobsters, had "been around the mob culture his entire life" and "was well aware" that Perna had a wiseguy purpose to commit the assault.

Randolph also told the panel that Manzo had told his ex-wife and an FBI agent that he "knows people" in the mob, and that in 2005 a group of Luchese members had their Christmas party at The Brownstone. The prosecutor also reminded the jurors that when Perna introduced Tripodi to Manzo, he stated, "this is a friend of mine, Lorenzo, and he is going to take care of this for us."

But Manzo's lawyers wrote "there was no evidence that Manzo knew of an enterprise-related purpose for the assault." They argue that "Manzo had no knowledge" that "Tripodi had his own enterprise-related reason for assisting Perna," or any other reason "why Perna would have committed the assault beyond the obvious one: the potential financial benefit of a free wedding."

The lawyers argued that Randolph and co-prosecutors Thomas Kearney and Bruce Keller used "improper conjecture and speculation based on little more than pop-culture depictions of organized crime and the fact that, as an owner of a catering hall who worked in and had lived in Northern New Jersey his whole life, Manzo knew alleged organized crime figures."

The claim that Manzo would have known that the introduction of Tripodi as "a friend of mine" had a "deeper and more insidious meaning than the plain English meaning" was undermined by a "highly prejudicial" tape recorded talk in 2007 that the government introduced into evidence over the defense objections, they wrote.

In the conversation, Perna's brother Joseph instructed Perna on the day John was inducted into the crime family "how to identify" himself and "specifically to refer to a fellow made member as 'Amica Nostra' or 'a friend of ours,'" they wrote.

"That someone would become privy to this coded language only after being formally inducted into the secretive organization necessarily shows that a 'civilian' like Manzo, even one who had exposure to members of organized crime, would not be expected to understand this specific meaning."

"The evidence showed no enterprise-related reason for Perna to assault Cantin beyond the purely mercenary benefit of avoiding having to pay for his own wedding," they wrote. And Manzo did not know that Tripodi hoped to become Luchese member "by committing the assault" or that "Tripodi had any reason to commit the assault other than to help his friend get a free wedding."

They argue that Judge Wigenton "committed reversible error" by not instructing jurors that they "could not convict Manzo of VICAR unless the Government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to aid and abet Perna and/or Tripodi in increasing or maintaining their position in the Lucchese family."

That was what a federal judge did in a 2019 New York racketeering trial involving a shooting by a Luchese gangster charged with aiding a gangster buddy, they wrote. In that case, the judge informed jurors they could "not convict (the defendant) on an aiding and abetting theory unless they found that (the buddy's) general purpose was to maintain or increase his position within the enterprise and that (the defendant) intended to further (the buddy's) purpose."

Instead, the lawyers assert, Wigenton wrongly told the jury "that it only needed to find that Manzo had knowledge of an enterprise-related purpose…This erroneous instruction negated an essential element of VICAR, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that the defendant "committed a crime of violence for the purpose of gaining entrance to or increasing or maintaining his position in the enterprise."

As a result, lawyers DiPietro, Saykanic and White wrote, even though Tripodi "characterized (Manzo) as 'a civilian,' Manzo was nevertheless found guilty" of a VICAR assault and a VICAR assault conspiracy that had "aris(en) from a purely personal incident involving the man dating Manzo’s estranged wife" and his VICAR assault conviction should be reversed.

Prosecutors will surely oppose the defense claim in their filing that is due next week.

Manzo, who copped a plea deal in October to state charges of stalking Dina and David to resolve charges that he was an accomplice of Luchese gangster James (Jimmy Balls) Mainello in the baseball bat assault and home invasion robbery of the couple in the Holmdel New Jersey home in 2017, was sentenced last month to 18 months to run concurrently with his federal prison term.

Mainello, 54, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Editor'sq Note: Gang Land is a taking a slide next week. We'll be back with more real stuff about organized crime in two weeks, on March 13.

Wiseguy Makes A Federal Case Out Of His Gripe With His Sentencing Judge

The 20-year-long shakedown of a union president was the centerpiece of the blockbuster case that took down the leadership of the Colombo crime family nearly four years ago. Like five other gangsters, wiseguy Michael Uvino admitted his guilt, and was sentenced. But Uvino has had a bone to pick with his sentencing judge about his restitution for two years now. The other day, his gripe was heard by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Uvino's complaint is that Brooklyn Federal Judge Hector Gonzalez dunned him the same $280,890 in restitution as defendants who were involved in the extortion conspiracy from Day 1, even though he joined the scheme in its 19th year. The most he should have had to pay for the five months he was involved, he and his court appointed attorney argued to no avail, was $22,000.

A three judge panel reserved a final decision Monday after quizzing Uvino's court-assigned appeals lawyer Elizabeth Johnson and federal prosecutor David Reich on their opposing point of view on the thorny issue of restitution for the union official, the president of Local 621 of the United Construction Trades and Industrial Employees Union. The feds say he paid wiseguys $624,000 beginning in 2001, but he was awarded only $280,890 in restitution by Gonzalez.

In Uvino's filing with the appeals court, Johnson argued that his restitution order for Uvino "must be vacated and remanded" back to Gonzalez because the judge "erroneously required him to pay restitution" of $280,890 to the union official as he had done for codefendant Domenick Ricciardo during a separate proceeding. Ricciardo was involved in the extortion scheme since 2001.

The appeals lawyer argued that it was improper for the court to order "Uvino to pay restitution for losses incurred before he joined the conspiracy."

"Without considering any evidence, hearing further argument, or making any findings of fact regarding Mr. Uvino's knowledge of earlier losses," Johnson wrote, Gonzalez stated he was also imposing "the full amount of $280,890" in restitution for Uvino without making any "findings that could support" his order.

It was also a hardship. At his sentencing, Uvino complained that he still owed an unspecified portion of a $100,000 fine that he received for a 2008 racketeering conviction that had kept him behind bars until 2016. Uvino completed his 41-month sentence for the union shakedown last year.

In the government filings, Reich and co-prosecutors Susan Corkery and Devon Lash argued that they had given Gonzalez "ample evidence that Uvino not only should have known but actually knew about the extent of the extortion conspiracy and, in particular, about (the official's) extortion payments prior to 2019."

They wrote that the Second Circuit has stated "that a defendant may be held responsible for restitution arising from conduct by his co-conspirators prior to his active participation in the conspiracy if he 'understood the scope of the conspiracy, such that he knew or should have known the extent of its adverse economic impact,'" and it should uphold the ruling by Gonzalez.

"Indeed," they wrote, Gonzalez received "direct evidence of Uvino's knowledge" from a tape recorded conversation in which Uvino inferred that he knew that the official's extortion payments began "as far back as 2008" and Uvino's argument to the contrary should be ignored.

But several times during the oral arguments Monday, Uvino's lawyer stressed that the judge had been given that information at proceedings involving other defendants, including Ricciardo and his cousin, Colombo capo Vincent (Vinny Unions) Ricciardo, and that Uvino never had a chance to rebut that information.

"This court has said more than once," Johnson said in response to a query from the panel, "that in order for the restitution order to be upheld you do not have to have an evidentiary hearing, but you do have to give the defendant you're imposing the order on, an opportunity to contest and challenge what you're relying on to make it."

Reich was unable to dispute that assertion in his responses to queries from the three judge panel, Reena Raggi, Steven Menashi, and Myrna Perez. But he did argue that there were three specific reasons in the record that establish that Uvino knew the extent of the union official's extortion losses, and that the Second Circuit should use them to uphold the Judge's ruling.

After joining the conspiracy, Reich told the judges, Uvino served as a "leader" of the scheme and became aware of its history. In May of 2021 he stated in a taped talk that the official was making payments to Vinny Unions as early as 2008. And at his sentencing, Uvino said he and the official had been friends since the 1990s, that he had attended the official's wedding and that they had vacationed together at Saratoga and Lake George.

The U.S. Attorney's Office refuses to say how much, if any, of the ordered restitution the union official has received. Vincent Ricciardo died while serving his sentence. In addition to Uvino and Domenick Ricciardo, Gonzalez has ruled that defendants Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico, Ralph (Big Ralph) DeMatteo and Richard Ferrara are all jointly liable for the $280,890.

Sal The Shoemaker Now Works For Team America

Turncoat Bonanno mobster Damiano (Danny) Zummo was the leadoff witness this week at the trial of ex-detective Hector Rosario. And, as expected, Zummo fingered the fired gumshoe for raiding a rival gambling parlor at Sal's Shoe Repair.But there was a surprise development on Day 1: Sal The Shoemaker, aka Genovese associate Salvatore Rubino, has flipped and backs up what Zummo and fellow snitch Salvatore Russo say about the raid. The Shoemaker is expected to take the stand today.

During their opening statements, both assistant U.S. attorney Anna Karamigios and defense lawyer Louis Freeman told the jurors that, in addition to Zummo, who testified Tuesday, and Russo, who completed his testimony yesterday, they will hear Rubino talk about the raid on his shoe store-gambling den in Merrick by Rosario and several cronies a decade ago.

Rosario, 52, is charged with obstructing a federal grand jury investigation into illegal gambling operations by the Bonnano and Genovese crime families in 2020. He is also accused of lying to the FBI on January 27, 2020 when he was questioned about the illegal gambling by the two crime families.

According to the verdict sheet, Rosario is specifically accused of lying to the FBI when he denied knowing Zummo, and when he blithely stated that he "was not familiar with the gambling business known as Sal's Shoe Repair." If convicted, he faces five years for lying to the FBI, and 20 years for obstruction.

Zummo, 51, is best known for having a major role in the one of the Bonanno crime family's most embarrassing moments. He presided over a videotaped induction of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police informer named Vincenzo Morena in a hotel room ceremony in Canada in 2015. He began cooperating with the feds two months after he was arrested in November of 2017 for selling cocaine to an undercover operative in Manhattan.

Zummo testified that the Bonannos were paying Rosario $1500 a month. They got their money's worth, he suggested. He described Rosario as "a street guy" who once warned him that he was under investigation when "he saw my photo at a precinct" and told him to "stay off the phone" to protect himself.

Zummo credited his cousin, Sal Russo, a Bonanno associate who operated a gambling parlor with introducing him to Rosario. He approved the raid on Sal's Shoe Store, but said it was Russo's idea to get Rosario to raid the place in an effort to "intimidate" Sal The Shoemaker into shutting the place down when the Bonannos learned that one of their customers was gambling at Rubino's club.

Russo, 52, was arrested in 2017 in the coke deal with Zummo. He began cooperating with the feds before his "cousin Danny" did and he followed Zummo to the witness stand late Tuesday. He completed his testimony yesterday afternoon.

Rubino, 60, pleaded guilty last Spring to engaging in illegal gambling in his shoe repair store in Merrick. His plea deal, with sentencing guidelines of 4-to-10 months, did not require him to cooperate. But at some point, sources say, Sal The Shoemaker agreed to start talking to his Uncle Sam. He will surely receive a no jail sentence in return when he faces the music for his crime.

It's unclear exactly when Sal the Shoemaker flipped. If it was last year, prosecutors Karamigios and Sean Sherman did an excellent job of hiding the fact. They argued against giving Rubino a 90-minute extension of his midnight curfew on New Year's Eve so he could come home and change his work clothes and go out and ring in the New Year with his close relatives and friends.

They behaved Grinch-like when they objected to the request by Rubino, who suffers from diabetes, and was forced to get a new job after his shoe repair business closed. He has been working nights from 5PM to midnight at an animal hospital, his request was approved by Sal The Shoemaker's probation officer.

Rubino's lawyer, Walter Mack, wrote Judge Eric Vitaliano that Rubino has been "gainfully employed" and asked him to approve the brief extension of his curfew. The judge agreed and went one better. He eliminated the location monitoring plus the midnight curfew that Rubino has been living with for the past 28 months.

It's unclear who knew what when, but this week, it's crystal clear: Sal The Shoemaker now works for Team America.

[dack2001]

Three wiseguys testifying against a piece of shit cop who wasn't worth a dime. What a world.

[aray22]

Cooperating to avoid doing a few months. Unreal.

[NYNighthawk]

we need more flippers - makes life more interesting!

[JohnnyS]

Mob-connected Long Island detective gave authorities coffee-connected password to rivals’ backroom gambling den: witness

https://nypost.com/2025/02/27/us-news/m ... bling-den/

[SonnyBlackstein]

Jerry needs a week off after this shit.

Yeah OK bud enjoy Cabo. Earned.

[Laughmatics]

How the fuck do snitches make life more interesting? They're the reason we no longer have the interesting stories we once had because there's so many of them. It was cool when it was one every 5 or 10 years.

[NYNighthawk]

How the fuck do snitches make life more interesting? They're the reason we no longer have the interesting stories we once had because there's so many of them. It was cool when it was one every 5 or 10 years.

Because it shows there are so many fags within the mob. The minute most of them get pinched, they wet their pants and cry for Mommy Team USA!

[furiofromnaples]

My curiosity but for sure there other criminals that run gambling parlors,would be more easy to target them that another mob family?