Gangland March 27th 2025

[Dr031718]

He Killed Five When He Was A 'Rash Young Man;' He's Headed Home Now As A 'Reflective, Empathic, Middle-Aged Adult,' Thanks To The First Step Act

Vito Guzzo, a violent Colombo crime family gangster who copped a plea deal decades ago calling for a 38-year prison term for five 1990s mob murders, has had ten years shaved off his prison term by provisions of the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA), Gang Land has learned. Sources say Guzzo, 60, will be released from prison next month

Guzzo's official Bureau of Prisons get-out-of-jail day isn't until November 4, 2028. But sources say provisions of the seven-year-old law have enabled the convicted gangster to pick up enough "earned time credits" to win an early release by completing scores of programs that the BOP says "support a successful return to society, reduce recidivism and promote public safety."

Using a different gambit two years ago, Guzzo struck out. He filed a motion in court seeking compassion under the First Step Act. That was denied by a judge who wrote that 38 years behind bars was "not extraordinarily long" for a gangster who killed five people and conspired to kill five others. Gang Land's sources say the BOP's FSA-based decision is final, and cannot be challened in Court. Guzzo will soon be transferred from the low security federal prison in Danbury to a New York halfway house.

Even before Guzzo racked up enough points under the First Step Act to win his release, the BOP had stated that Guzzo "has good character," was "polite, respectful and hard working," and worthy of an early release. But federal prosecutors in Brooklyn slammed that notion, writing that "multiple government sources" had stated that Guzzo was inducted into the Colombo crime family while housed at Danbury.

Guzzo denied that and offered to take a polygraph test to refute that claim. The feds never took him up on that offer. Now it's irrelevant thanks to his big FSA win. He has told friends and relatives that he'll be released next month.

"It's like an open secret," said one source. "Everyone who should know knows about it, but don't quote me," the source said.

As it turned out, Guzzo's decision to forego trial and plead guilty in September of 1998 smoothed the way for an accomplice in one of the murders, Michael (Cookie) D'Urso, to continue his very successful three-year-long undercover probe that took down two mob bosses and dozens of other mobsters. We'll get to that below. First though, a few details about Guzzo's upcoming release.

In his compassionate release motion, Guzzo described himself as someone who had matured from the "rash young man" he was when he was arrested and incarcerated in April of 1997 into a "reflective, empathic, middle-aged adult" who'd been dubbed a "model inmate" by his jailers.

A BOP spokesman declined to discuss Guzzo's status, stating that for "privacy, safety, and security reasons," the agency "does not discuss the conditions of confinement" or possible release plans "of any incarcerated individual." But several knowledgeable sources tell Gang Land that the BOP has decided to release Guzzo.

In the bureaucratic lingo of the prison bureau, over the past 27 plus years Guzzo has completed a significant number of what the BOP calls "Evidence-Based Recidivism Reduction (EBBR) Programs and Productive Activities (PAs)."

According to BOP-FSA protocol, for every 30-day period that an inmate takes part in an EBRR Program or a Productive Activity, the inmate will earn at least ten days off his sentence, and up to 15 days if he is a minimum, low risk inmate. So, if a minimum risk inmate like Guzzo spent a year on an EBRR or PA program, he would automatically earn 180 days, six months off his sentence. According to court filings, Guzzo has completed 130 BOP programs, and has been a low risk inmate for years.

But back in June of 1998, Vito Guzzo was anything but a low risk guy.

He had a hair-trigger temper and was the feared leader of a crew of violent young gangsters affiliated with three crime families who were dubbed the "Gianinni Crew" by the feds because they hung out at the Caffe Gianinni on Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood Queens.

Assistant U.S. attorney Jim Walden, who headed a task force of FBI and DEA agents and NYPD detectives, told the court in a pre-trial hearing in November of 1997 that Guzzo was plotting to kill witnesses, and had sought permission from the Justice Department in Washington to seek the death penalty for Guzzo.

That month, on June 17, 1998, according to court filings, Walden's task force arrested Cookie D'Urso and charged him with driving Guzzo and a second gunman in a stolen van to Middle Village where they both shot and killed John (Johnny Boy) Borrelli, a Gambino associate who was sitting in car with Guzzo's former girlfriend, who miraculously was not injured in the assault.

The arrest surprised D'Urso, as well as FBI agent Mike Campi, the author of the book about D'Urso's undrcover work that was published in November, Mafia Takedown, The Incredible True Story of The FBI Agent Who Took Down The New York Mob.

A few months earlier, according to Mafia Takedown, Cookie had gotten his attorney, Maranda Fritz to contact the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office about cooperating because he was on the outs with the Genovese family, wanted revenge against gangsters who had tried to kill him four years earlier and knew that he was a suspect in Borrelli's killing.

That day, Campi was slated to meet D'Urso for the first time, Campi wrote. But Fritz called Cookie and told him "to go home" because the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office had "changed the location for the meeting at the last minute." That "never happens," she told Cookie and that "was giving her bad vibes" about the get together, Campi wrote.

"There were two camps" at the office, Campi wrote. One "had developed enough evidence" to arrest D'Urso for Borelli's murder and "put him away for life." The other camp wanted "to assess his possible use as a cooperating witness." A "bizarre resolution was reached" to do both he wrote: Arrest him for murder, and talk to him about cooperating.

That decision was "viewed by D'Urso (and his attorney) as beyond strange," Campi wrote. If anyone had seen "his public and splashy arrest for murder and reported it," Cookie would have been "quickly killed if he was suddenly back out on the street" because "the mob would know the only logical explanation for his freedom would be that he was working for the FBI," Campi wrote.

At Fritz's request, D'Urso's arraignment was conducted in Judge Sterling Johnson's chambers at 6 PM, according to a transcript of the session. Walden told Johnson the case was "peculiar" in that "many months ago D'Urso contacted our office through Ms. Fritz in an effort to cooperate and render proactive assistance." He was "completely candid," Walden said, and asked that D'Urso be released so he "can assist the government in a continuing criminal investigation."

Judge Sterling Johnson"Judge Johnson made clear to D'Urso that if he did not cooperate, all bets were off, and his role in the Borelli hit meant that he was eligible for the death penalty," Campi wrote, adding that he "put D'Urso to work that very same day."

FBI records indicate it was the following day, June 18 1998, that the wired up D'Urso went to work.

On that day, D'Urso met Guzzo's cousin Maria. She had beeped him three times the day before while he was dealing with his arrest for murder to discuss the status of Vito's case. Cookie told her he would personally give Vito $50,000 for a death penalty lawyer and reach out to the Colombo family for additional legal fees for her cousin.

Campi and other sources say that during the next two weeks, D'Urso spoke to several Colombo gangsters, including underboss William (Wild Bill) Cutolo and his son Bill Jr., and obtained $20,000 from Wild Bill for legal fees for Vito. The sources say that Cookie gave that cash to Vito's attorneys, and gave $50,000 to Vito's brother Anthony for his death penalty lawyers.

Sources say that during July, August and early September, Guzzo was pushing for a speedy trial that would "expose the rats" who flipped on him because the Walden camp was insisting that he plead guilty and accept a life in prison sentence rather than a 30-year-deal that Guzzo agreed to accept while the death penalty was still on the table.

The sources say that D'Urso kept telling AUSA Paul Weinstein and his camp that Guzzo would take 30 years in prison and kept pushing them to get Walden to offer Guzzo a plea deal because Cookie's role in the Borrelli murder would come out if he went to trial. That would end his FBI undercover role, and his efforts to bring down Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito, the gangster he blamed for trying to kill him during a 1994 card game at the San Giuseppe Social Club.

On September 14, 1998, Guzzo pleaded guilty, agreeing to take 38 years behind bars, which Judge Johnson imposed the following month.

Two and a half years later, in April of 2001, the FBI pulled the plug on its investigation and the feds took down 45 mobsters and associates from all five families on racketeering, murder, and other charges. In the end, all but one of the 56 defendants charged in the case, including then Genovese boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante, and the current leader, Liborio (Barney) Bellomo, were convicted in the case.

Next month, in April of 2025, nearly a quarter of a century later, Vito Guzzo, the "rash young man" whose decision to plead guilty helped make that all happen, is slated to return to the fray as a "reflective, empathic, middle-aged adult" a few years earlier than was planned.

Gambino Wiseguys Awaiting Trial On Racketeering Charges Have Money Problems

As the racketeering trial of Gambino capo Joseph (Joe Brooklyn) Lanni and nine codefendants moves at a snail's pace toward a scheduled trial in September, money problems have arisen for two of Lanni's accused fellow wiseguys, according to a spate of recent court filings in the 16-month-old case.

Imprisoned mobster James (Jimmy) LaForte pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in Philadelphia calling for restitution of $2.5 million in addition to a prison term between 110 and 137 months. Now, his financial problems need to be resolved by Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block.

LaForte's attorney, Thomas Mirigliano told Block back on March 15 that it's been more than a year since LaForte has paid him for legal services. The attorney informed the Court that he would seek permission to withdraw from the case unless the judge is willing to appoint him to represent his client under the Criminal Justice Act.

Mirigliano is not a member of the CJA panel of lawyers who agree to regularly accept indigent clients and earn $175 an hour for their services. But continuing as Laforte's attorney "under the CJA would serve the interests of justice while promoting efficiency and judicial economy" and "ensure that Mr. LaForte continues to receive uninterrupted and effective legal representation," the lawyer wrote.

Assigning him to continue representing LaForte under the CJA would be less costly than appointing a new lawyer, since that would "require considerable time for any newly appointed attorney" to digest the large volume of discovery that the feds have turned over to the defense to adequately prepare for trial, Mirigliano stated.

"My familiarity with the legal and factual nuances of both cases," and how they relate to each other as well as an "in-depth understanding" of LaForte's "personal circumstances and defense strategy" gives him "an advantage that no newly appointed counsel could replicate without significant delay and disruption," he wrote.

It wouldn't be the first time the judge has stepped in to solve a wiseguy's financial headache in the case.

Block used an off the record discussion with prosecutors and lawyers for wiseguy Diego (Danny) Tantillo and a long drawn-out session before U.S. Magistrate Lara Eshkenazi to enable Tantillo to sell a New Jersey property owned by his parents that was one of eight that were posted as security for his $5.5 million bond so the wiseguy could hire a new attorney.

It took almost two months, but on Monday, it became official. Tantillo is represented by attorney Alan Futerfas, and two lawyers in his firm, Ellen Resnick and Stephanie Guaba, and Phyllis Malgieri, of Fischetti and Malgieri.

Lowkey, Well-Respected Gambino Wiseguy Philip Modica, Checks Out At 96

The leaders of the Gambino family and many of its members paid their final respects last week to Philip Modica, a well-respected, elderly soldier who owned the Manhattan restaurant that led to the trial — and the acquittal — of mob boss John Gotti in 1990 for ordering the 1986 shooting of carpenters union official John O'Connor. Modica was 96.

Modica, who died of undisclosed natural causes on March 11, was a second generation wiseguy; his father, Onofrio, had been a close associate of the family patriarch, Carlo Gambino.

In 1986, Modica owned the Bankers & Brokers Restaurant, the Battery Park City eatery that angry union carpenters had trashed, causing an estimated $30,000 in damages for employing non-union carpenters, according to court records.

At Gotti's assault trial, which turned out to be his last hurrah, the Dapper Don and codefendant Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri were charged with getting several members of the Westies to shoot O'Connor in his buttocks in the lobby of the Manhattan building on Broadway where his union headquarters was located on May 7, 1986.

Despite the testimony by James McElroy that Westies leader Jimmy Coonan had told him that Gotti had asked them to "break the carpenter guy's legs," and that he was there when a cohort shot O'Connor four times, Gotti and Guerrieri were acquitted on February 9, 1990.

Along with scores of other wiseguys, including his administration members Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano and Frank (Frankie Loc) Locascio, they celebrated their victory at the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy amid a fireworks display.

Gotti & Company celebrate his 1990 assault convictionModica, whose son Onofrio (Noel) Modica followed him into the crime family, was a low key wiseguy. He apparently was not required to show up at the Ravenite during the years that the FBI was watching and videotaping the wiseguys who showed up each week as ordered by the Dapper Don. Modica was rarely, if ever seen, at Gotti's Mulberry Street headquarters.

Gambino boss Domenico (Italian Dom) Cefalu and family consiglieri Lorenzo Mannino, who sources say serves as the family's "street boss," were among the many wiseguys who paid their respects to Modica and voiced their regrets to his son Noel and many other relatives who attended the three day wake at Scarpaci Funeral Home in Bensonhurst.

Other than Modica's son Noel, who was released from prison in 2018 following an eight-year sentence for racketeering, Gang Land was unable to obtain the names of any of Modica's survivors.

Following a funeral mass at St. Finbar Church in Bensonhurst, Modica was interred last week in Staten Island at the Moravian Cemetery.

[bluehouse]

at this point if their letting guzzo out 13 years earlier they should let john pappa out because pappa has less bodies than guzzo and was younger than him.I believe whatever your sentence is you should do the whole time no matter how well behaved you were in prison

[NYNighthawk]

Who were Guzzo's five (5) victims that he killed? Doesn't their fmailies have any say if he gets released? It seems the victims and their families have little say in these matters.

[dack2001]

Disagree. Prison has to have some sort of rehabilitative element. A person who committed crimes as a young man should have the chance to get out as an old man.

[Aces]

If a convict doing a long stretch knows he could get out early, they will more than likely not engage in violence while in prison and do everything they could to rehabilitate themselves.

[Cheech]

Nadu predicted Jerry would talk about Gene Gotti. Swing and a miss

[OcSleeper]

Nadu predicted Jerry would talk about Gene Gotti. Swing and a miss

Don't worry, next week Capeci will write about Manna's death

[John W]

Nadu predicted Jerry would talk about Gene Gotti. Swing and a miss

Nadu gets things wrong more than he is right but never talks about when he gets things wrong (he's been wrong about Manna dying twice), he keeps talking shit about the Black Hand Forum yet he is a member and doesn't have the balls to reveal his account name on here, Scott has been wrong many times as we know but at least he is on here under his real name.

[Cheech]

Nadu predicted Jerry would talk about Gene Gotti. Swing and a miss

Nadu gets things wrong more than he is right but never talks about when he gets things wrong (he's been wrong about Manna dying twice), he keeps talking shit about the Black Hand Forum yet he is a member and doesn't have the balls to reveal his account name on here, Scott has been wrong many times as we know but at least he is on here under his real name.

Does he talk about us? I hardly listen. I dont care for his show. Im sure he has a ghost account.

[moneyman]

Nadu predicted Jerry would talk about Gene Gotti. Swing and a miss

Nadu gets things wrong more than he is right but never talks about when he gets things wrong (he's been wrong about Manna dying twice), he keeps talking shit about the Black Hand Forum yet he is a member and doesn't have the balls to reveal his account name on here, Scott has been wrong many times as we know but at least he is on here under his real name.

Does he talk about us? I hardly listen. I dont care for his show. Im sure he has a ghost account.

Yes - he has talked alot of shit about the forum before in his videos

[Cheech]

Nadu predicted Jerry would talk about Gene Gotti. Swing and a miss

Nadu gets things wrong more than he is right but never talks about when he gets things wrong (he's been wrong about Manna dying twice), he keeps talking shit about the Black Hand Forum yet he is a member and doesn't have the balls to reveal his account name on here, Scott has been wrong many times as we know but at least he is on here under his real name.

Does he talk about us? I hardly listen. I dont care for his show. Im sure he has a ghost account.

Yes - he has talked alot of shit about the forum before in his videos

thats too bad. 90% of the forum knows much more than him. he can learn a lot here. the best show going loves it here. so there you go.

[aray22]

Nadu said it was a "show of force" by Gotti to go to an old buddies funeral with a couple of his other buddies.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Capacity still has Cefalu boss and Mannino consig.

Anyone know the longest runs a boss has had on the street? Of the 5.

[furiofromnaples]

at this point if their letting guzzo out 13 years earlier they should let john pappa out because pappa has less bodies than guzzo and was younger than him.I believe whatever your sentence is you should do the whole time no matter how well behaved you were in prison

Im agree with you but Pappa killed 4 men and get 45 years for other offences plus he didnt take a plea. So he will die in prison even he was a teenager when killed those people.

[bluehouse]

If a convict doing a long stretch knows he could get out early, they will more than likely not engage in violence while in prison and do everything they could to rehabilitate themselves.

if an inmate commits violence you just feed him once a week and see if he will ever commit violence again.Fuck rehabilitation make jail so unpleasant like it is in El Salvador that once they get out they will be petrified to commit crimes again