Gangland:6/16/2016

[Dellacroce]

June 16, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Wiseguy Back Behind Bars After Surviving A Nine-Day Prison Furlough

Colombo capo Luca DiMatteo finished up an unusual nine-day jail furlough last week. He didn't have much fun. The veteran wiseguy, who has several convictions for violent crimes including extortion, returned to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn to resume his pre-trial detention as he awaits a racketeering trial in September that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.

The 71-year-old mobster's brief respite from the federal lockup is yet another telling illustration of how confinement in a federal prison can be dangerous to your health when you've got bladder cancer, diabetes or other ailments that require more than perfunctory medical care. Three weeks ago we reported that Genovese soldier Salvatore (Sally KO) Larca needed emergency surgery after receiving poor medical care for severe gastro-intestinal ailments at the federal prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey.

DiMatteo seems even worse off. Brooklyn Judge I. Leo Glasser, who detained DiMatteo a year ago as a danger to the community despite his cancer, was so vocal about the shoddy care he got over the past five months that the feds agreed to release him for seven days so he could undergo tests at a real hospital rather than contest the issue with testimony by prison doctors and officials at a full-blown hearing.

"I understand the MDC is not the Mayo Clinic," said Glasser. "But I also understand that even the MDC, or Bureau of Prisons has an obligation to see to it that a person in need of medical attention is receiving it appropriately and adequately."

The day before the hearing was slated to begin, prosecutors filed a notice agreeing to release DiMatteo for one week so he could "receive medical evaluations in a hospital" once he posted a $1.2 million bond. At the end of the week, they added, DiMatteo would be required to "self-surrender" to either the MDC or a prison hospital determined by the BOP.

"This is another instance of waiting too long to diagnose and treat, and now this man will suffer the consequences," said Linda Sheffield, an Atlanta-based attorney who represents many inmates. "He was locked up and nobody in authority seemed to care. They do it over and over. This is the norm, except most people don't get a week outside for proper care. Most of the seriously ill come out in a body bag."

"It is my experience that inmates wait months for a simple diagnostic test, after an outside doctor orders it, and by then the condition is critical," Sheffield said. "Test results from long delayed tests are sometimes not properly communicated and the result can be catastrophic. That is my ongoing experience with clients."

In one case in which her client has "a mental health issue," the lawyer added, "the BOP psychiatrist vindictively removed vital medications on two separate occasions because he questioned her and his care when they teleconferenced."

DiMatteo also suffers from thyroid cancer and a host of other medical problems including heart disease, hypertension and a type of adrenal cancer that "may or may not be in remission," according to a list of his medical problems his attorney listed in court papers. He also depends on a pacemaker and "is in chronic debilitating pain," says lawyer Flora Edwards.

DiMatteo is a dyed in the wool gangster. His last prison stretch was 57 months on a 2003 case, when he was indicted with family consigliere Joel (Joe Waverly) Cacace and a dozen others for a 17-year-long racketeering spree that included the extortions of two Brooklyn yacht clubs — and ended with a guilty plea in which he admitted punching out a deadbeat debtor.

Despite his many ailments, as soon as he was released from prison in 2007 he quickly resumed his criminal activity, according to prosecutors Elizabeth Geddes and Allon Lifshitz.

According to the feds, DeMatteo went straight from his chemo therapy treatments to receiving extortion payments a year ago. In July, he and his nephew, Luca (Lukey) DiMatteo, 47, were arrested on racketeering charges including loansharking, gambling and shaking down a fearful Brooklyn businessman for $200 every two weeks for more than 10 years.

Since then, judges have rejected several get-out-of jail requests based on DiMatteo's proven medical ailments.

"An illness doesn't justify criminal behavior," Glasser said at one bail hearing, agreeing with prosecutors that DiMatteo's ailments were no excuse since they didn't curtail his criminal activities.

But the judge changed his tune after hearing Edwards detail how her client was mistreated, without much contradiction from the prosecutors.

In January, Edwards told Glasser, the MDC stopped giving DiMatteo his prescribed pain medication and substituted a "completely ineffective" drug. For the next three months, the lockup ignored six requests, including two letters the lawyer sent to the Warden, that DiMatteo be examined by a doctor.

After she complained to Geddes, said Edwards, the prosecutor got back to her quickly and reported that she'd been told that "DiMatteo had been seen by a doctor." But Geddes "was misinformed," said Edwards, stating that DiMatteo "was seen by a physician's assistant" whose advice was to "double the dosage" of the same useless medicine he'd been getting since January.

When prison officials finally transported the ailing gangster to a Brooklyn hospital, they neglected to send along his medical records.

"They turned around and took him back" to the MDC and he was "bedridden for another two days," said Edwards. "He can't be left to suffer at the MDC until his heart gives out."

By mid-May, DiMatteo was "unable to focus on anything but the constant pain he is experiencing," said Edwards. "DiMatteo urgently needs an overall evaluation to determine the cause of his constant pain and a program of pain management which will provide him with sufficient relief to participate meaningfully in his defense and to conduct day to day activities," she informed Glasser.

According to court papers, two days after his furlough began, DiMatteo was rushed to the emergency room of Winthrop Hospital in Mineola for undisclosed reasons, where he remained until last Thursday, when he reported back to the MDC, two days later than originally planned.

Neither Edwards nor the BOP would disclose the results of the tests that DiMatteo underwent or the reason why he was hospitalized.

In April, over the objections of prosecutors, Glasser granted a weekend furlough to DiMatteo's nephew Lukey. This also wasn't for a happy family gathering. It was a compassionate release on a Friday that Lukey's 17-month-old daughter underwent surgery for treatment of Stage 4 cancer.

Late Mob Lawyer's Kids: We Had Mom's Best Interests In Mind When We Sued Her In Florida

The most embarrassing lawsuit in Gang Land — a furious legal feud over millions between the widow of a mob lawyer and her children — continues with each side continuing to point angry fingers at the other. Here's the latest:

The children of late mob attorney Nicholas Gravante are battling their mother over what court should handle their dispute. Mother Elinor wants the case heard in Brooklyn; her loving children say it should be in Florida.

The kids claim they had the best interests of their widowed 81-year-old mother in their hearts and minds when they sued her in Florida over a $600,000 a year dispute they have about the multi-million dollar real estate empire their dad amassed while buying and selling property for wiseguys over the years.

There's about $15 million dollars worth of rental property at the heart of this bitter family feud, the fruits of Nicholas Gravante's many legal labors for Gambino and Luchese mobster clients. Briefly, the dispute breaks down this way: The kids filed suit first in Florida, seeking to void their mom's signed agreements with them and their deceased dad that give her $600,000 in annual rents from the prime New York real estate.

Mom Elinor quickly responded in kind, filing a lawsuit in Brooklyn accusing the kids of cheating her out of the $600K a year in rental income that she was entitled to.

As the dispute raged from October, 2015 through February, mom and children both indicated numerous times that they were ready and willing to go to court, says son Nicholas Jr., a partner at the prestigious Manhattan law firm of Boise Schiller & Flexner LLP.

"Specifically," Gravante Jr. states in an affidavit filed in Florida on Monday, "I talked with my mother regarding whether it would be more convenient for her to litigate in Florida or New York. Based on these conversations, it was determined that Florida would be the most convenient place for my mother to litigate."

"These intentions were made known to my mother in the months preceding initiation of this lawsuit," wrote Gravante Jr. He added that the planned litigation by him, his brother Richard and sister Catherine "was always contemplated in Florida (whether Plaintiffs filed suit or my mother filed suit) and Florida is the most convenient forum for my mother, a Florida resident."

Richard Gravante, also an attorney, agrees with his brother's remarks.

In his affidavit, he states that his mother hates New York winters and spends only about 20 days a year in her Bay Ridge home. In Mrs. Gravante's motion to dismiss the Florida suit or consolidate it with her Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit, her attorney Barry Kingham estimates she spends five months a year in New York, and argues that since the properties, their records, and most of the expected witnesses are in the New York area, the case belongs in Brooklyn.

Richard, whose office is in the same Bensonhurst, Brooklyn storefront where his father toiled for decades, states that his mom "resides in Naples, Florida, files taxes as a Florida resident, claims homestead in Florida and is registered to vote in Florida" where she lived with his father from 2004 until late 2014, when he was hospitalized in Connecticut after a debilitating stroke.

In addition to the two federal lawsuits, Nicholas also filed a defamation suit against his mother for telling Florida neighbors — and Gang Land — that he tricked her into signing away a former family vacation home in Connecticut worth about $1.5 million by telling her that she was signing a "do not resuscitate" order for her husband in January of last year, two months before he died.

Elinor Gravante's allegation about the Connecticut home, where daughter Christine now lives, is also a cause of action in both federal suits, with each side saying the other's claim is wrong.

Kingham did not return a call for comment, but Mrs. Gravante disagreed wholeheartedly with the above assertions by her sons.

Her children's March 1 lawsuit "was a shock," she told Gang Land. "I knew nothing about a Florida lawsuit. All of a sudden the lawsuit was filed. We were going to settle. We were going to negotiate and all of a sudden my son Nick filed the lawsuit. That's a big lie. I don't want it in Florida."

The New York attorney for the Gravante kids, Roland Riopelle, countered that claim in an affidavit filed Monday in Florida. "The threats of suits and countersuits were already thick in the air" in mid-February, he wrote, and "Kingham's suggestion that he was shocked to discover that the plaintiffs had commenced a lawsuit against Mrs. Gravante sounds like the shock expressed by Casablanca's Captain Renault that gambling is going on at Rick's Place."

Disbarred Mob Lawyer Pays The Freight As He Loses Another Round

Hard luck mob lawyer Larry Bronson, still struggling to get back his license to practice law in Brooklyn Federal Court, has had another tough go of it.

First, he tried to pawn off the $29.99 Fed-Ex charge for sending his application for reinstatement to the court by sending the package C.O.D. in hopes the court would pick up the fee. The grievance committee clerk, having none of that nonsense, issued a reprimand.

Then the Grievance Committee Judge, Brian Cogan shot him down with a single sentence. The judge noted that Bronson cited "past accomplishments" in his application but failed to include "any proof of compliance" with the requirements for readmission, the judge noted tersely.

The 70-year-old Bronson, who was disbarred in 2008 after he copped a plea deal to cover several racketeering charges and was sentenced to 16 months in prison, has a tough row to hoe.

Even court grievance clerk PaulaMarie Susi let him have it. The court "does not accept recipient billing," she wrote him. Susi directed Bronson to "resolve this invoice directly with Fed-Ex and provide the court with proof of payment."

Actually, Bronson's federal convictions aren't his chief problem in winning reinstatement as an attorney in good standing in Brooklyn and Manhattan Federal Court. The chief obstacle? He's a New Jersey attorney and was never admitted to the New York state bar. That is a prerequisite for full admission into either court that he somehow got around in the 1980s, but which is currently being strictly enforced by both New York Federal Courts.

Bronson's New Jersey license to practice law was restored last year, and he told Gang Land yesterday that he has been restored to the list of attorneys in good standing in the Garden State's federal courts, even though court records indicate that his application is still pending there.

Bronson said he plans to push for admission in New York's federal courts when he decides the best way for a New Jersey attorney to comply with the complicated rules governing admission into the federal courts in the Second Circuit, which includes the states of New York, Vermont, and Connecticut.

The other day, a Bronson letter to Susi, and a paid-in-full receipt for $29.99, was filed in Brooklyn Federal Court. So Gang Land assumed his initial COD submission was a clerical snafu and decided not to mention that to Bronson yesterday and perhaps distract him from his research on the best way for him to find the "proof of compliance" that he's searching for.

[Pogo The Clown]

"This is another instance of waiting too long to diagnose and treat, and now this man will suffer the consequences," said Linda Sheffield, an Atlanta-based attorney who represents many inmates. "He was locked up and nobody in authority seemed to care. They do it over and over. This is the norm, except most people don't get a week outside for proper care. Most of the seriously ill come out in a body bag."

My heart bleeds.

Lukey's 17-month-old daughter underwent surgery for treatment of Stage 4 cancer.

Now this is heart breaking.


Pogo

[Rocco]

THanks for posting. Who fucking cares about these lawyers?? Stop writing about them Capeci !! We don't care that some dead Mob Lawyers family is feuding over his estate !! Jerk Off !

[Cheech]

Agreed

[AG777]

Cheech, I think you need to work your magic again! Remember last time you asked for a good story and Capeci delivered. We're all counting on you.