Gangland - 6/28/18

[Chucky]

This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Mob Turncoat Fingers His Old Man In Meldish Murder; Then Takes It Back

Like his father, who's a Luchese wiseguy, and like his late grandfather, who was a Gambino soldier, Frank Pasqua III is a drug dealer. But Pasqua III, who has used the alias, "Anthony Bianco," wants to start a fresh new life as a legit guy, maybe a letter carrier, or some other civil service-type gig far from the hustle and bustle of the New York scene.

That's why 38-year-old Pasqua III decided two years ago to follow the same play book that his uncle Richard did more than 25 years ago and join Team America, according to court records and other investigative sources.

Gang Land has learned that the youngest Pasqua is the mob turncoat we told you about last month who fingered himself and a mystery partner in the 2013 murder of former Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish three years ago. Pasqua later recanted that story, and he is now set to testify against a bunch of Luchese gangsters charged with the Meldish slaying and a host of other racketeering crimes.

Sources say that in 2015, while Pasqua III was working as a confidential informer for the FBI, he stated that his father, Frank Pasqua Jr. was the cohort who was with him when they met up with Meldish to work out a drug deal. Although it was allegedly his old man who shot Meldish, in a display of fatherly generosity, the younger Pasqua originally claimed his dad told him: "It's done. And if anybody asks, say that you did it, so you get the credit for it."

That information, which prosecutors learned long before the two gangsters who are charged with the actual killing — mobster Christopher Londonio and associate Terrence Caldwell — were indicted, is at the heart of defense complaints that prosecutors withheld helpful Brady Material they had in their files that they should have turned over to the defense.

As Gang Land disclosed on May 31, the cooperating witness, whom we now know is Pasqua III, told the feds that he and an unnamed partner had driven to the Bronx to see Meldish about the drug deal. That unnamed partner, we now know, was his father, Frank Pasqua Jr. In yet another change from the government's official version of events, Pasqua III told the feds that the killing wasn't planned, but was a spontaneous event that he had no idea was going to occur.

Pasqua Jr., 64, and his father, Frank Sr., were both arrested back in 1982 as part of a multi-mob family, multi-million dollar-a-year heroin smuggling business. Junior and Senior were both convicted. Junior took 15 years, the Senior Pasqua, a few years less.

The youngest Frank Pasqua decided to cooperate with the feds in 2016, a year after he allegedly framed his father for the murder of Meldish. The trigger was an arrest that May for drug dealing while he was a federal detainee at the Putnam County jail, according to an arrest complaint by FBI agent Chris Munger.

Sources say that Pasqua III — he ultimately pleaded guilty during a proceeding that was sealed — was released on a $200,000 bond in October of 2016 and wore a wire for the feds. He tape recorded conversations with his father, Londonio, as well as several other targets.

A trio of top Luchese mobsters — former family street boss Matthew (Matty) Madonna, longtime underboss Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea, and his capo son, Steven (Stevie Junior) Crea — allegedly ordered Londonio and Caldwell to kill Meldish, who was shot to death on November 15, 2013. In June of 2015, a Bronx grand jury charged the duo with the Meldish murder. In February of 2017, they were hit with federal murder charges, as part of a racketeering indictment. Three months later, Madonna and the Creas were added to the indictment.

During several court proceedings, prosecutors have stated (without mentioning their names) that both Pasqua III, who has pleaded guilty as part of his cooperation deal, and Frank Jr., were both part of the murder plot to whack Meldish. The elder Frank Pasuqa has not been charged in the case.

Meanwhile, as the late legendary NYPD detective Joe Coffey stated after Meldish was shot to death as he sat behind the wheel of his parked car, more than a few folks were happy to hear that Meldish, who was a suspect in many murders going back to the mid-1970s when he ran with the Purple Gang, was dead.

The Meldish body count, according to various sources, includes the 1975 murder of rival drug dealer Frank Ciappetta and the 1976 killings of two Purple Gang associates who fell out of favor with Meldish, Carmine Pugliese and Joseph Messina.

But decades after those murders, Meldish was still royally pissing off a lot of mobsters.

As recently as 2011 — and again in 2013, just months before he was killed, according to NYPD and FBI records — Meldish had major blowups with members of the Bonanno crime family, including Bronx-based mobsters, capo Ernest Aiello and soldier John (Johnny Joe Jr.) Spirito, and Enzo (The Baker) Stagno.

In 2011, Aiello and Spirito Jr. allegedly assaulted Meldish at a restaurant under orders from imprisoned Bonanno boss Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso for daring to fool around with Mancuso's girlfriend while he was cooling his heels behind bars for a murder conspiracy. That same year, Meldish retaliated with a baseball bat assault against another Bonanno mobster.

Two years later, according to sources and law enforcement reports, Meldish enlisted Caldwell to whack Stagno, apparently in retaliation for his troubles with Mancuso. The Baker was shot as he sat in a car parked in East Harlem, but survived the assault. (Caldwell is charged in the pending case with shooting Stagno on May 29, 2013.)

Finally, sources say that in 2012, aging and ailing Israel (Buddy) Torres, a longtime mob associate and pal of Genovese capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello, told mob associate John (JR) Rubeo that he was going to kill Meldish for causing him to lose a construction industry job he was seeking.

In other words, it seems almost half the wiseguys and drug dealers in the Bronx and Westchester wanted Mike Meldish dead. No wonder there's a lot of debate about who did the deed.

It's The End Game For Junior Persico, And The Outcome Looks Bleak

He's ailing, 84 years old, wheelchair-bound, nearly blind and he's been behind bars for 33 years for a non-violent crime. Sounds like a compelling argument for a compassionate release from prison, no? Even the federal Bureau of Prisons — notoriously stingy at granting such releases — might have to take a long hard look at such an application. Except that the aging inmate is a mob boss and his non-violent crime was bid-rigging in the historic Commission case.

The 2013 Bureau of Prison guidelines for such releases seem tailor-made for the likes of Carmine (Junior) Persico.

That's why his lawyers are pressing hard for his release. They also plan to file court papers in Washington D.C. to force the U.S. Parole Commission to grant Persico a "mandatory parole hearing." The lawyers had one scheduled last year, but the hearing was abruptly postponed until 2051 when Persico would be 118 when Junior and his lawyers showed up for the August 2 hearing.

In their new request to the warden of the prison hospital complex where Persico has been held for more than a decade, the lawyers state that their client suffers a dozen "debilitating ailments" — including heart and kidney disease — indicating that "continued imprisonment is neither necessary or proper." Persico, they state, is "certain to die in prison" for bid-rigging "unless he is granted compassionate release."

The lawyers also cite "extreme emotional and psychological hardships" Persico has suffered while behind bars — the deaths of his mother, father, mother-in-law, father-in-law and two brothers. In addition, he's been denied taking part in celebrations of the births of 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren "who were born during his incarceration," wrote attorneys Anthony DiPietro and Mathew Mari.

The lawyers filed their request with J.C. Holland, the Warden of the prison hospital complex in Butner, North Carolina, on June 8, a few days after Persico's Commission case codefendant, Christopher (Christy Tick) Furnari, the Luchese consigliere who was paroled in 2014 after serving 28 years in prison, died at his Staten Island home.

"The need for compassionate release in Mr. Persico's case cannot be overstated," the lawyers wrote, stating that Junior was an "elderly and sick federal prisoner" who has "never been convicted of a violent crime" and who, during "the last 30 plus years of his imprisonment," has been "nothing short of a model prisoner."

The lawyers wrote that a five-year-old BOP policy qualifies the wheelchair-bound Persico for compassionate release. The May 1, 2013 edict applies, they wrote, to "inmates who have an incurable, progressive illness, or have suffered a debilitating injury from which they will not recover, who are either completely disabled or are capable of only limited self-care and are confined to bed or chair more than 50% of waking hours."

They note that since Persico is blind in one eye, has diminished vision in the other, has "major spine damage," emphysema and "extremely limited upper body mobility" due to "deformities in both his left and right arms," Junior clearly fits into the BOP's "extraordinary and compelling circumstance" classification that merits compassionate release.

This is especially so, the lawyers wrote, in light of a 2016 BOP decision to give a compassionate release to Sal Dimasi, a Massachusetts legislator who was five years into an eight year term for "extortion and related crimes" because throat cancer had "narrowed his throat" and left him "at risk of choking whenever he eats."

The lawyers noted that a Massachusetts federal court agreed with the BOP that Dimasi's medical condition, "while not terminal," was an "extraordinary and compelling" reason for his release, and argued that if Warden Holland applied the same standard, he would have to send Junior Persico home to his long suffering, and still waiting, wife Joyce.

"A significant takeaway from Dimasi," the lawyers wrote, is that even though the inmate's medical condition was "not terminal," the BOP and the court stated it was "an 'extraordinary and compelling' circumstance justifying compassionate release." Persico's ailments, like Dimasi's, "are not terminal, but they are certainly 'extraordinary and compelling' enough to warrant compassionate release," wrote DiPietro and Mari.

"Mr. Persico, who is 13 years older than Mr. Dimasi was at the time of his release, is wheelchair bound, blind in one eye, and suffers from chronic kidney disease, hypertension, glaucoma, emphysema, and various other illnesses" and Junior "deserves the same opportunity the BOP provided to Mr. Dimasi," the lawyers wrote.

Persico is the only still living defendant of the seven who were hit with 100 year prison terms for their Commission case convictions — the other five died in prison — for sharing a 2% kickback for each concrete contract in Manhattan that was greater than $2 million in return for labor peace at job sites from the construction industry unions the wiseguys controlled.

One factor that's likely not working in Junior's favor is the fact that, even despite a civil war in his crime family, the feds say he has never yielded his throne as boss of the Colombos.

Still, anything is possible, and while his lawyers have made a compelling argument for his compassionate release, they know that getting one for Persico is a huge longshot. The last wiseguy to get one, Bonanno boss Philip (Rusty) Rastelli, did so in 1991, and the BOP sent him to a Queens hospital where he stayed in a comatose state, until he died, three weeks later.

That's why DiPietro and Mari are working on another longshot legal motion, a last stand called a writ of mandamus — demanding that the D.C. Court properly fulfill its duty — and force the BOP and/or the Parole Commission to send Junior Persico back to Brooklyn while he is still breathing.

Low Key Bookie Who Owes His Button To Sammy Bull, Closes His Sheet

Charles (Charlie Boy) Aurello, a little-known wiseguy who was inducted into the Gambino crime family along with Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano more than 40 years ago and who remained a well-respected mobster while operating primarily as a bookmaker and loanshark, cashed in his chips last week. He was 74.

Aurello was the son of the late Salvatore (Toddo) Aurello, a cagy Brooklyn capo who sponsored Gravano and his son to be made men. He died last Friday following a long bout with cancer.

Charlie Boy was straightened out along with Gravano and several others in the basement of Gambino soldier Frank (Frank The Wop) Gagliardi's Bensonhurst, Brooklyn home in the first induction ceremony conducted by Paul (Big Paul) Castellano following the death of family patriarch Carlo Gambino in October of 1976.

The initiation rite took place in late 1976 or early 1977, after Gambino's longtime underboss Aniello (Neil) Dellacroce was released from prison in November of '76, and he agreed to remain as family underboss and serve under Big Paul, who was Gambino's brother-in-law and Don Carlo's choice to succeed him as boss.

Aurello, who was busted in a 1997 March Madness probe by prosecutors in Philadelphia and Brooklyn that snared 25 bookies during the NCAA college basketball championships, managed to avoid the FBI's onslaught against the mob over the years, even while showing up at the Ravenite Social Club as required during the heyday of the late Mafia boss John Gotti.

"I don't know that he did any work," Gambino family defector Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo told Gang Land, using the mob's business-like term for murder. "But he was a very capable guy, a very trustworthy guy." DiLeonardo was in a good position to know. Mikey Scars served as Aurello's mob superior until he flipped, a few months after both men attended the Dapper Don's spectacular sendoff wake in June of 2002.

DiLeonardo told Gang Land that while Aurello was "officially" under then-capo Louis (Big Lou) Vallerio, "Charlie Boy was really with me, around me almost every day. He was an avid hunter and fisherman; we would go hunting together — we never bagged anything — but it was good time."

Law enforcement sources say that in recent years, Aurello was under the wing of Staten Island-based capo Michael (Mickey Boy) Paradiso. But as one source put it, "Charlie Boy wasn't a prime time player in the Gambino family" in recent years.

In fact, according to Underboss, Gravano's book by Peter Maas, Charlie Boy wouldn't have been made at Big Paul's first initiation rite, and might never have gotten his button if Sammy Bull hadn't convinced Toddo Aurello to sponsor his son along with Gravano.

Gravano did it with the help of neighborhood Colombo mobster Salvatore Albanese, who had seen Sammy's name on a list of proposed mobsters and told him about it.

"Then," Gravano recalled, "when Toddo speaks to me, I find out that he wasn't intending to propose his son, Charlie. I say, 'Toddo, guys are making their sons. I know Charlie all my life. He's a good kid. If you don't do it, you'll embarrass him. He hangs around, he's in the clubs.' Sally Albanese talked to Toddo as well and we convinced him. Charlie's gonna be made."

"So the time comes when Toddo tells me to be at his club the next day. 'Dress up,' he said. And me and Charlie show up in suits."

The Brooklyn born wiseguy moved to Staten Island after he was married — that's where he lived when he was busted in the March Madness case — later relocating to Manalapan, New Jersey to be close to his first-born grandchildren, according to the obituary prepared by his family.

"Nothing was more important to Charlie than his family, and he never forgot the values he learned back in the neighborhood in Brooklyn," states the obituary, which added: "The one thing he loved more than hunting and fishing was spending time with his five grandchildren — Nicholas, Louis, Christopher, Genevieve and Patrick."

Charlie Boy was laid to rest Monday at the St. Rose of Lima Cemetery in Freehold following a funeral mass at St. Joseph's Church in Millstone and a one-day wake at the Freeman Manalapan-Marlboro Funeral Home in Manalapan.

In addition to his widow Jo-Ann and his grandchildren, Aurello is survived by daughters Lucia and Gina, and their husbands, Joe Beauchamp and Pat Marzo.

[Uncle Pete]

Thanks for posting Chucky. Great column this week.

So the FEDS had information that neither Londonio or Caldwell didn't pull the trigger but arrested them and held them for being the hit team anyway? Also, the defense team for the administration will for sure be paying attention to this new rat saying it was unplanned and was a "spontaneous event".

I swear the feds look worse and worse in every single mob indictment that's come down the past decade.

[Fughedaboutit]

Thanks for posting Chucky. Great column this week.

So the FEDS had information that neither Londonio or Caldwell didn't pull the trigger but arrested them and held them for being the hit team anyway? Also, the defense team for the administration will for sure be paying attention to this new rat saying it was unplanned and was a "spontaneous event".

I swear the feds look worse and worse in every single mob indictment that's come down the past decade.

I have not read this article yet, but I recall a previous column alluding to this. Feds are crooked as fuck. They use a pen and not a gun, only difference.

[TommyGambino]

Thanks for posting. Was Aurello an earner then?

[aleksandrored]

Thanks for posting, I think they should grant the freedom for Persico to die in peace, he already fulfilled what he had to fulfill, besides that the Persico era is almost at an end.

[SonnyBlackstein]

The youngest Frank Pasqua decided to cooperate with the feds in 2016, a year after he allegedly framed his father for the murder of Meldish.

Really? He gave up HIMSELF and HIS FATHER in a a hit when he wasnt even cooperating, when he was just an informant?

What Bullshit.


This case is a clusterfuck.

Thanks for the post Chucky.

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Never seem this pic of Christy Tick before.

[slimshady_007]

With all the fbi fuckups, i expect some acquittals in the luchese case. Good gangland btw

[thegunners]

Capeci can still do some great columns, this was one of them

[Kash]

Jesus the feds are incredible. There is the intial story where you think everyone is screwed and then stuff starts coming out about the feds handling of the case and it’s pure insanity.

[Teddy Persico]

Jesus the feds are incredible. There is the intial story where you think everyone is screwed and then stuff starts coming out about the feds handling of the case and it’s pure insanity.

This has been a trend lately.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Jesus the feds are incredible. There is the intial story where you think everyone is screwed and then stuff starts coming out about the feds handling of the case and it’s pure insanity.

This has been a trend lately.

Financial markets saying ‘the trend is your friend’.

Although most ‘truisms’ are true, until they aren’t.

Which means everyone’s a genius in retrospect, so basically shut the fuck up Sonny because you’re basically saying jack shit.



Good post Sonny.