Gangland news 16th April 2020

[Hailbritain]

By Jerry Capeci

Ex-Mob Busters Take On A Billionaire Bizman Sex Pervert Worse Than Jeffrey Epstein

Gang Land Exclusive!Peter NygardIt is a very different kind of case, against a very different kind of target, but two of Gang Land's most prolific mob busters have teamed up to investigate a billionaire fashion mogul who allegedly led a secret life for years as a sexual predator of young women.

Decades after they helped take down legendary Mafia boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante, former assistant U.S. attorney Dan Dorsky and ex-FBI agent Mike Campi have been digging into massive rape allegations against Peter Nygard, an internationally known fashion designer with an office and a home in Manhattan. And in a new book that tags Nygard as an even worse sexual predator of young women than Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, and Harvey Weinstein, the veteran investigators slam the billionaire businessman as a "sociopath" and a "wealthy freak."

In Predator King, investigative reporter Melissa Cronin used numerous details that Dorsky and Campi obtained on a trip to the Bahamas about the "pamper parties" that Nygard held at his Bahamas estate in portraying him as a sexual pervert who allegedly raped girls as young as 14. Like Epstein and Weinstein, Nygard allegedly covered up his actions for years through cash payoffs to his victims and corrupt officials in the Bahamas, the U.S. and Canada.

Dan DorskyThe duo say they spoke to a "staggering" number of Bahamans who told them about the "orgies." They also encountered many who knew or heard about numerous Nygard victims.

And in an investigative coincidence, the duo found themselves staying at the same Bahamas hotel where Campi had, two decades earlier, overseen a meeting between two suspects in an undercover probe who were hit with racketeering charges with Gigante and current boss Liborio (Barney) Bellomo in 2001.

Cronin's book was a tightly guarded secret until last Friday, when Skyhorse Publishing distributed it with no prior notice to help insure it was the first book about Nygard, a 78-year-old Finnish-born Canadian. In late February, FBI agents raided his New York and Los Angeles offices, two days after the New York Times ran a 4400 word story that accused Nygard of raping 14-year-old girls at his Nygard Cay Estate in the Bahamas.

Since then, news outlets around the globe have jumped on the burgeoning story, noticing, as Cronin wrote, that Prince Andrew and his children were photographed at Nygard Cay in 2000 and that "Nygard's property was featured on several episodes of Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, as well as an ABC special called Life of Luxury, hosted by George Hamilton."

Melissa CroninOther reported Nygard guests, she wrote, "have included Sean Connery, Robert DeNiro, Lenny Kravitz, Michael Jackson, George H. W. Bush, Barbara Bush, Lee Iacocca, Sylvester Stallone, Jessica Alba, and mem­bers of the Kennedy clan. (All seem to have had no idea what was really happening there.)"

In Predator King, Cronin writes that Nygard was first charged with rape at age 28. It happened on January 16, 1980, when the "dashing fashion designer" who had already fathered children with three different women, was arrested in his home-town of Winnipeg on rape allegations lodged by an 18-year-old woman, and released on a $7500 bond.

Several weeks later, Cronin writes, "that case vanished into the ether after the victim declined to testify in court" and "the case was stayed — an extremely rare occurrence in Canadian courts." Since then, she wrote: "More than 40 years later, Nygard has never been arrested for a similar offense."

But in a civil suit filed in February that gibes with accounts she got from numerous women when she traveled to the Bahamas to investigate rape and sex abuse allegations against Nygard, Cronin wrote, 10 women have charged that Nygard "regularly forced" so-called "paid-girlfriends" to accompany him to "swingers' clubs" in Manhattan and "find couples for him to have sex with."

Predator KingCronin made good use of the findings by Campi and Dorsky, who told Gang Land they interviewed some 50 residents and workers during their work in the Bahamas. Many were residents whom they approached at random to ask about the "wild parties" that took place at Nygard's gaudy, Mayan-inspired estate that he named Nygard Cay. The author used quotes from at least five persons they interviewed.

"[Girls] would come out of the hotel, catch a cab, and then they would get in," one taxi driver told the duo, Cronin wrote. "He had a secretary or something down there. They'd have the cab number, and they'd call when they needed the girls to come back uptown (to Nassau). I never had a conversation with them, only sometimes when they'd go down there, they'd be upset, talking amongst themselves."

"Another driver described rumors of 'wild parties,'" Cronin wrote.

"He had a reputation for giving wild parties," said this driver, who added, "Because of how I grew up, I didn't expect an adult to take advantage of kids. But there are people with money — as I'm sure you know — who think they can buy anything and get away with anything, and they take advantage. The women would have their names on a sheet that the security guard could check. If somebody wanted me to pick them up at a certain time, they'd leave my name and the taxi number at the gate, so I wouldn't have any problem getting in."

Vincent Gigante"Tragically, even those who had a front-row seat to the constant flow of girls to Nygard's home turned a blind eye thanks to cultural standards that devalued young women, an older female driver told our team," Cronin wrote, noting that the driver's opinion was shared by many adults.

"Many of the drivers used to drop girls down there," she said. "But then I say, you know, if you don't know what you're going for, why are you going to that house? Why are you catching taxis to go there? And then you decide, 'OK, he raped me.' I'm a little skeptical about that raping business, because what are you doing there in the first place?"

Another woman taxi driver, who had visions of becoming a model, said years ago she was tempted to attend a Nygard party when she was invited by a friend, but she decided against it. "I had three older brothers who would kill me," she told Campi and Dorsky over lunch at the Arawak Cay Fish Fry.

Liborio BellomoDorsky and Campi were recruited by book pblisher Tony Lyons who was seeking law enforcement expertise to help cement Cronin's findings. The two investigators worked together during their years with the federal government and have also teamed up on occasion since moving on. Lyons commissioned the men to write the foreword and afterword of the book because they had "notable reputations and backgrounds" in law enforcement, said Skyhorse spokesman Hector Carosso.

Campi, 64, spent a few years working official corruption cases, but spent most of his 20-plus years as an FBI agent focusing on the powerful Genovese crime family. In addition to being the "case agent" for convictions in the case of Gigante, Bellomo, and 54 others, he oversaw dozens of other cases, and supervised the 150 members of the New York FBI's organized crime squads when he retired.

Dorsky, 57, logged a conviction of Gigante in his first mob trial, in 1997, and won convictions in more mob trials in the next six years — seven — than any other mob prosecutor, and most likely in any six-year period. He convicted seven top gangsters, including acting Colombo boss Andrew (Mush) Russo, family underboss John (Jackie) DeRoss, and Luchese mobster Michael (Baldy Mike) Spinelli, for the attempted murder of a Brooklyn mom.

Peter TarangeloThe game plan when they got to the Bahamas, said Dorsky, was to hit the ground running as soon as they checked into their hotel. "As we're walking into the hotel," Dorsky said, "Mike stops me."

"As soon as I saw the pool and the staircase," said Campi, "I recognized it as the same hotel where I oversaw a money laundering deal with Tommy Cafaro and Peter Tarangelo, the tax doctor," he continued. The men were targets of what would be a 56-defendant racketeering case based on the undercover work of Genovese gangster-turned informer Michael (Cookie) D'Urso.

"I was by the pool taking pictures of Tommy and the tax doctor making this money laundering deal," said Campi. The deal, which was unfolding on June 14, 2000, according to an old FBI report that Gang Land found, involved a $130,000 check provided by Durso that Tarangelo, a Florida-based accountant, was going to launder for Cafaro and Barney Bellomo. The budding mob boss was then serving 10 years on a case that the former FBI agent put together in 1996.

"This was after Barney told Tommy he doesn't want anybody meeting the tax doctor, and we're meeting him. The tape is rolling, and I'm taking pictures of Tommy and the tax doctor, who Barney doesn't want anyone to know about," said Campi. "And we're in the same hotel."

"IThomas Cafarot was an amazing moment," laughed Dorsky, who was part of a three-way telephone talk with Gang Land. "We walk in, he goes, 'Wait a second, I was here. I recognize this place,' and he tells me what he just told you."

As it turned out, Cafaro, now 61, copped a plea deal, was sentenced to seven years, and released from prison in 2008. Tarangelo got a no jail term, and worked at a West Palm Beach eatery until 2015, when he passed away. Bellomo, 63, took four years in a plea deal, was also released from prison in 2008, and like Cafaro, has avoided any further hassles with the law.

In the coming weeks, Dylan Howard, who co-authored Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales with Cronin, plans to produce a podcast with Dorsky and Campi that will include tape recordings that the duo made while they were in the Bahamas as a "test run" for a possible "true crime" podcast series involving the ex-mob busters.

COVID-19 Bug Infects And Kills Two New York Wiseguys

Joseph ZitoJoseph Zito, a powerful Genovese soldier who dodged mob bullets back in the day and whose Little Italy restaurant was popular with gangsters as well as everyday New Yorkers, has fallen victim to this vicious, miserable virus.

Zito is one of two New York wiseguys to lose their lives to a COVID-19 infection, according to Gang Land's sources.

Also claimed by the killer coronavirus was Gambino soldier Augustine (Augie) Guido, who was snared in a conspiracy to hijack a truckload of bootleg cigarettes back in 2010 by a turncoat mobster, Nicholas (Nicky Skins) Stefanelli. Guido was sentenced to probation for his role in the FBI sting operation. Stefanelli fared much worse: He killed himself rather than testify against his old pals. Guido, of Brooklyn, died on March 28. He was 79 and was buried April 2 at the Moravian Cemetery in Staten Island.

Zito died on April 7 at the age of 83. He had been ailing in recent years and was living in a nursing home at the time of his death.

Augustine GuidoIn his heyday, Zito presided over Ruggiero restaurant on Grand Street, where he often rubbed elbows with his close pal, Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno, as well as John Gotti and other wiseguys who dropped in to pay their respects. "Ruggiero was his crown jewel," said one source who counted Zito as a good friend. "You always got a good meal there, no matter who you were."

"He was known as Joe The Butcher because his dad was a butcher and Joe was able to handle meat professionally," said the old pal, adding that in the late 1990s, Zito became involved in the produce business and spent a lot of time in the Bronx, at the Hunt's Point Market.

In 1990, when Joe The Butcher still owned Ruggiero, he was snared in the so-called Windows case in which the mob earned millions of dollar in a bid-rigging scheme by sharing replacement window contracts in city housing projects. The scheme unraveled thanks to Peter (Black Heart) Savino,an underling who had originally been under Zito and who later became a government cooperator.

Nicholas StefanelliAmong those charged in the case was family boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante. Gigante might well have decided to blame Zito for Savino's treachery. But lucky for Zito, a decision Gigante made likely spared him what might well have been a beating COVID-19 Bug Infects And Kills Two New York Wiseguys Joseph Zito, a powerful Genovese soldier who dodged mob bullets back in the day and whose Little Italy restaurant was popular with gangsters as well as everyday New Yorkers, has fallen victim to this vicious, miserable virus. or worse.

Shortly before Savino flipped, said one source, "Chin took Savino away from Joe and made him his guy." As a result, Savino didn't have many dealings with Zito during the windows scheme. But he did have pleanty to say about Chin's role in the scheme when he testified at Gigante's racketeering trial in 1997.

Savino's testimony sunk the Oddfather. He was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison. But six years earlier, in the first trial in the case, a brief tape recording that Black Heart had with a Ruggiero worker helped Zito win an acquittal. In that recording, when the employee told the wired-up snitch that Joe The Butcher wasn't around, Savino said, "That's okay, he has nothing to do with this anyway."

Savino died three months after Gigante's trial, so we'll never know whether Savino unwittingly — or perhaps very wittingly — helped spare his old mob superior a prison term with those words. But Chin's decision to bring the moneymaking Savino under his flag, eliminated any chance that Zito would get blamed — and possibly killed — for Savino's decision to flip.

Anthony CassoAt the time, according to sources and FBI documents, Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso had learned from his NYPD moles, Mafia cops Louie Eppolito and Steve Caracappa, that Savino was an informer, and had alerted the Genoveses about it. But Gigante refused to believe it and demanded proof before he would order his execution. By time Chin had his proof, he was indicted.

"If Chin hadn't glommed Savino for himself, he would have blamed Zito for the Windows mess," said one source. "He liked Zito, so he may not have whacked him, but he would have paid a stiff price. There's no doubt about that."

In 2001, Zito, of New City, was snagged on loansharking and racketeering charges in the same racketeering case that Agent Campi put together against Gigante, Barney Bellomo, Tommy Cafaro and Peter Tarangelo.

He did three years and, following his release from prison in 2005, he had no further problems with the law. "He was a respected, and respectful guy," said an underworld source who shared many stories about "the old country" with Zito since their families both emigrated from Calabria, the so-called "toe of the Italian boot" that was always kicking Sicily around.

Jailed Luchese Family Leader Hospitalized With Coronavirus

Matthew MadonnaMobsters behind bars are also being hit by the rising rate of infections among incarcerated defendants, and Gang Land has learned that among those struck by the deadly virus is Matthew (Matty) Madonna, the aging former acting boss of the Luchese crime family.

Madonna, 84, has been hospitalized suffering from a severe case of the coronavirus virus after testing positive for the killer disease at the Westchester County Jail (WCJ) in Valhalla, where he was being held, Gang Land has learned.

Madonna has been awaiting sentencing for his federal murder conviction for the 2013 gangland-style slaying of former Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office, officials of the jail, as well as officials of Westchester County, and officials at the county's Correction Department, have been mum all week regarding Madonna's condition. Sources say he tested positive sometime last week, and was transferred to the Westchester Medical Center earlier this week when his condition worsened after he was quarantined.

Michael MeldishIn addition to declining to discuss Madonna's status, the law enforcement officials, as well as the county's public information officer, also refused to tell Gang Land how many inmates and staffers at the WCJ have tested positive since the outbreak began.

Sources, however, say the veteran gangster "was in very bad shape" even before he was hospitalized last week.

The aging mobster's positive testing is symptomatic of a continuing trend at the state facility that houses numerous federal detainees, particularly those prosecuted in White Plains Federal Court, as well as the two federal lockups in the city, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

At all three facilities, the number of inmates and staffers testing positive for the COVID-19 pandemic has risen even as the numbers of overall coronavirus cases in the New York metropolitan area seem to have plateaued or begun to decline.

Mimi RocahIt's unclear whether the most recent numbers that Gang Land has obtained from federal court records and other sources, indicate that more inmates and staffers are contracting the coronavirus or whether the numbers are growing because more testing is being done.

On April 7, for example, 24 Valhalla inmates and 75 staffers tested positive for the virus, according to a court filing with Federal Judge Nelson Roman. Two days later, on April 9, there were 33 Valhalla inmates and 94 staffers who tested positive, according to Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor. Rocah, who is running for Westchester District Attorney, says DA Anthony Scarpino has not used his power as DA to increase and better testing procedures in the WCJ.

While the number of inmates and staffers who've tested positive has increased in both federal lockups in the city in the last week, the overall numbers are much lower that the WCJ positives.

Judge Nelson RamonLast week, at the MCC, on April 8, four inmates and six staffers had tested positive for the virus. At the MDC, two inmates and five staffers had tested positive for COVID-19, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. This week, on Tuesday April 14, the last day for which the BOP had stats, a total of five inmates and 18 staffers had tested positive at the MCC. The numbers at the MDC were four inmates and 16 staffers.

Again, at press time no officials were available to explain why the positive tests for the COVID-19 virus at the two federal lockups in the city are so much lower than the positive tests at the WCJ, which is about 30 miles north of the two city facilities.

Meanwhile, the future seems pretty bleak for Matty Madonna. If he wins his bout with the virus, he still faces a mandatory life sentence for his murder conviction.

[Hailbritain]

Peter

[Hailbritain]

Zito

[Hailbritain]

Guido

[Hired_Goonz]

Thanks for posting. One gets the feeling that this is what the Gang Land column will essentially be in the coming weeks: just a roundup of all the NY mob figures confirmed to have tested positive and/or died of the virus.

[SonnyBlackstein]

thanks for the post and pics HB

[wolf0077]

Joe Zito was a great guy .. very powerful ..

[bert]

Joe Zito was a great guy .. very powerful ..

I ate in that restaurant quite a few times many years ago and used to see him, never knew he was a Mafia member, he was all class and a gentleman.

[TommyGambino]

Madonnas better off dead

[Extortion]

Joe Zito was a great guy .. very powerful ..

What? A great guy? Did you know him or are you a fan boy?

[wolf0077]

I knew him well

[Pogo The Clown]

Also claimed by the killer coronavirus was Gambino soldier Augustine (Augie) Guido

One less guido.


Pogo

[SonnyBlackstein]

Also claimed by the killer coronavirus was Gambino soldier Augustine (Augie) Guido

One less guido.


Pogo

That was actually pretty good...

[Jbravo]

Should have been a moulignan

[wolf0077]

i knew Joe very well...