Gangland News - 9/10/20

[mafiastudent]

Al Brackley, For The Defense, Was One Of The Best: RIP

Gang Land Exclusive!

Albert BrackleyFor anyone in Judge Jack Weinstein's courtroom that day, it was an unforgettable scene. The tall defense lawyer bent down, looked under the prosecution table, his shaggy mop of white hair hanging down over his eyes. He stuck his head in a trash basket. Then he walked around the courtroom shaking his head back and forth searching for something he couldn't find. Then he walked to the jury box and said: "I couldn't find the evidence anywhere, and you won't either."

The tactic didn't fully persuade the jury.

About 11 hours later, the panel in Brooklyn Federal Court reported it had found the government's evidence after all. Albert Brackley didn't save the day for jockey Con Errico back on May 19, 1980, as he had for so many defendants — in earlier and later trials — during his 57 year-career.

After reading last month that Al Brackley had died on April 25 at age 86 in a court ruling by a judge who praised Brackley as a "highly regarded member of the criminal defense bar," it behooved Gang Land to share a few anecdotes about one of the most able barristers to stand up before a judge.

Al Brackley certainly was an "old-school" lawyer. But it's wrong to say they don't make them like him anymore. That's because Brackley was one of a kind. The Queens-born and raised Korean War vet put up a shingle on the corner of State and Court Streets in 1963 and became a legend in Downtown Brooklyn over the next 50 years.

"Al was a legend in the court room," the Brooklyn Bar Association stated in an obituary posted on its website the day after he died. "He was renowned for his relentless cross-examination, his enthralling and winning summations to juries and his all-around implacable style of criminal defense that emboldened the spirit of the accused."

The Bar Association may have oversold Brackley's courtroom prowess a little when it stated that he was "quite possibly the single greatest criminal defense attorney in New York City over the last half-century."

But there are many current and former prosecutors and defense lawyers who watched him try a case over the years who agree with that assessment.

"He was the best," said lawyer George Farkas, a former assistant Brooklyn district attorney with an office on Court Street. "I told law students I brought into court that you learn more watching Al sum up for 20 minutes or on cross examination for an hour than in three years of law school," said Farkas. "If they did a search," the lawyer continued, "I'd bet Al had more acquittals in murder trials than anyone else."

That gibes with what two still working Brooklyn prosecutors told Gang Land.

"Over the years," said one Homicide Bureau prosecutor, "Al Brackley was the last person you'd want representing the guy you were trying to convict of a murder, no matter how good your case was."

"He was skilled and he was honorable, and in his day, he was the best around," said another longtime prosecutor. "And he probably had more acquittals in homicide cases than any other defense lawyer."

"He was a consummate trial lawyer," said attorney Edward McDonald, former chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force in Brooklyn. "He had a great memory and he never referred to any notes during his summation. The only thing he held in his hands was a paper clip."

"He loved to try cases," said McDonald. "I ran into Al in the Bronx a few years ago and he said, 'Yeah, I'm north of 80 and I'm still trying cases.' He worked mostly in state court but he had a few Strike Force cases in the 80s. One Monday, Al had a great line. He came in to the office badly sunburned. I said, 'Been on vacation Al?' He looked at me and said: 'My life's a vacation.'"

"Everyone talks about his great memory," said Brackley's son Patrick, whose law office his dad worked out of in recent years. "But he was old school. He worked hard at every case he had because he felt it was the right thing to do. And he never once turned anyone into a cooperating witness."

While he was still in grammar school, Patrick recalled attending the 1977 extortion and drug trafficking trial of Anthony Mirra, the Bonanno mobster who would be whacked five years later for unwittingly helping FBI agent Joe Pistone pull off his crafty sting against his crime family by introducing him to other mobsters.

Brackley won an acquittal for Mirra from the jury on the extortion count, but wangled an even bigger win from Judge Richard Denzer regarding the jury's guilty verdict of the drug charges against Mirra. Denzer, a prosecutor for famed "rackets buster" Thomas Dewey who later served as a top aide of legendary Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan, helped rewrite the state's penal laws in the 1960s.

At the time, Denzer was a special narcotics judge appointed to handle a spate of cases that grew out of the state's so-called Rockefeller drug laws. At Mirra's sentencing, according to attorney Ronald Kliegerman, the judge's law clerk at the time, Denzer agreed with Brackley's argument that the sentence should be concurrent to the 20-year prison term that Mirra had gotten for a 1962 federal drug conviction on the grounds that it was the same drug operation.

"Mirra got credit for the time he had served for the federal case on the state case," Kliegerman recalled. "He did virtually no time for the state conviction."

Brackley's big win with Denzer enabled Mirra to hook up with Pistone, and would lead to the death of his client in 1982 following the disclosure of the Donnie Brasco sting operation. But it would help Brackley land Con Errico as a client, following his 1979 racketeering indictment for fixing dozens of races at Aqueduct and Saratoga in 1974 as part of a mob-linked race-fixing conspiracy in five states.

The lawyer lost that case, but he had several noteworthy wins in the 1980s. In 1987, Judge Jerome Cohen was acquitted of seven counts of bribe receiving by Brooklyn Supreme Court jurors who told reporters that Brackley had convinced them not to believe the word of a corrupt key witness, the head of a credit union who had testified that Cohen accepted bribes.

And in 1989, he bested noted federal prosecutor John Gleeson in winning an acquittal for stock broker Melvin Rosenberg who was charged with jury tampering in a 1987 drug trafficking trial of John Gotti's brother Gene, a Gambino capo and two other mobsters at a six day trial before Judge Eugene Nickerson.

Brackley's oldest son, Ryan, who also followed in his father's footsteps and is currently an attorney in Denver, was in law school at the time and a daily spectator at the trial.

"My dad was cross examining one of the FBI agents, and he was hammering him, hitting him really hard when Nickerson called him up to the bench for a sidebar," Ryan recalled. "The judge told him, 'This is cross examination, you should use a sharp sword, or a scalpel, to frame your questions.' Dad said, 'I'm sorry judge, this is Brooklyn, here we use an axe handle.'"

"When my mom died," Ryan continued, "he was on trial in the Scores murder trial" in January of 1999, representing Simon Dedaj, one of two brothers charged in Manhattan Supreme Court with the 1996 murders of a waiter and a bouncer at the Upper East Side jiggle joint. The death of Patricia Brackley, an environmental activist after whom a city park on Beach Channel Drive in Belle Harbor is named, caused a delay in the trial.

"The judge and the prosecutors all came to the wake," said Ryan. "I'll always remember that they showed respect for him, delaying the trial, letting him grieve. It was a tough time. And he showed respect for the court by going back and doing the best for his client."

Brackley got an acquittal on some lesser counts, including burglary, and a hung jury on the murder counts, even though jurors heard Willie Marshall, a mob associate who was in the club at the time describe the double murder on an FBI bug that was in the place. But Dedaj and his brother Victor were both convicted at a retrial in May, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Mob associate Battista (Benny The Blade) Geritano fared much better a year later when his first trial for murder — an alleged drug-related killing in 1991 — ended with the jury hung 11-1 for conviction. A month later, at his retrial in October of 2000, he was acquitted of all charges.

Patrick Brackley declined to discuss the 2017 case in which Geritano copped a plea deal rather than go to trial for threatening Patrick and his dad in a dispute about Benny's 2013 conviction for a 2012 barroom stabbing. But he recalled Benny's two murder trials in 2000.

"The day after the mistrial," he said, "my dad badgered the feds and got some Brady material he had learned about during the case, and demanded an immediate retrial."

Al Brackley often impressed jurors by recalling their names in his closing remarks. But he knew the law, and used it very effectively for his client, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Laura Johnson wrote, noting in her decision upholding Geritano's conviction for the 2012 stabbing, that Brackley was "a well-known and highly regarded member of the criminal defense bar."

Before trial, Johnson wrote, Brackley investigated and learned that the arresting detective had deleted all the video of the barroom brawl that didn't include Benny, and "questioned him vigorously" about that, and used that info "very effectively in his closing argument."

Brackley also reminded jurors that the victim was "the sole witness to testify about the fight," that he didn't identify Benny as his assailant, that no witnesses corroborated his testimony, and "repeatedly directed the jury's attention to the adverse inference" they could draw from the "missing tapes" that "could have showed the stabbing and fight."

In addition to sons Ryan and Patrick, Brackley is survived by a son James, and 10 grandchildren.

"Al was a lawyer's lawyer, a gentleman, and a mentor to all who sought his advice," said attorney Mathew Mari. "He will be missed."

Judge To Mobster: Take Care of Yourself, Behind Bars

Judge Sandra FeursteinAfter failing to get a compassionate release from his 51- month prison term to take care of his ailing wife, longtime Gambino soldier John (Johnny Boy) Ambrosio opted to file a more standard motion the second time around. But it did him no good. The aging wiseguy got the same response last week that he got the first time: Denied.

In March, Ambrosio, 77, an old pal of late Mafia boss John Gotti, asked Central Islip Federal Judge Sandra Feuerstein to let him fulfill the rest of his sentence at home so he could serve as a care giver for his wife Rose. He wrote that she suffers from "organic dementia" and is also "grieving the recent death of her daughter," who died from cancer.

Johnny Boy had argued that he was "the only family member capable of caring for" his 76-year-old wife of 45 years, and would be able to do so despite his own myriad of ailments. That motion was denied for the standard bureaucratic reason: Ambrosio hadn't first sought a compassionate release from prison officials, as inmates are required to do before they seek redress in court.

After the warden at his Fort Dix facility in New Jersey officially denied his request, Ambrosio dumped his new lawyer, and retained his former attorney, Michael Alber. In a 100 page filing, Alber cited a litany of medical problems that made Ambrosio a "high-risk fatality patient" if he were to contract the COVID-19 virus while behind bars, and asked for a compassionate release.

Alber offered a lengthy list of medical ailments that justified Ambrosio's release: "gerd, hernia, hypertension, hyperlipemia, five cardiac stents, blockage in his left leg, vertigo, sugar diabetes, asthma, prostate (elevated PSA), knee osteoarthritis, water retention in leg, cellulitis of the leg, grit disturbance (and) refractory disequilibrium." These were "extraordinary and compelling reasons" to warrant his client's release, he wrote.

Even before the prosecution had a chance to reply, Judge Feuerstein noted another bureaucratic trip wire barring Johnny Boy's release: He had "served less than half of the sentence that was imposed."

"The physical frailties that you go into were known to me at the time" he was sentenced in December of 2018, Feuerstein said. "And frankly, I don't see what COVID-19 has to do with this at all. I just want to be very clear about that. The bottom line is that there is nothing different than what was proposed before."

Alber responded that virtually "everything" about his client's health has declined, based on doctors' letters he had submitted and the Bureau of Prison's own medical records that showed that "his medications have doubled" since he began serving his sentence in April of last year.

That's when assistant U.S. attorney Artie McConnell chimed in and helped put the finishing touches on Ambrosio's latest request for compassionate release.

"He picks and chooses the medications he takes," said McConnell, noting that none of the doctors who had submitted letters on Johnny Boy's behalf had examined him.

"The most significant thing about his increased problems," the prosecutor continued, "is that this defendant substitutes his own judgment for that of his doctors. He takes the medications he wants, and when he wants to take them. I think that undercuts many of Mr. Alber's arguments right from the get go."

McConnell reminded the judge that in his earlier compassionate release request, "the defendant asserted he was in a position to act as a caregiver" for his wife, but now claims that he is too ill to take care of himself. "I don't see how those two things can be true simultaneously," said the prosecutor.

And beyond the medical issues, added McConnell, the judge would need to consider Ambrosio's longtime mob ties, which, the prosecutor stated, would "counsel against" his early release. Johnny Boy, who was remanded for six months following his arrest when the feds used letters from Gotti that were seized at Ambrosio's home to paint him as a dangerous felon, has now served 22 months of his sentence for racketeering and loansharking.

"The motion is denied for all those reasons," said Feuerstein. Ambrosio's current release date is June 2, 2022, but he will likely be eligible for halfway house six to nine months earlier.

Judge Wants Aging Wiseguy In A Prison Hospital: The BOP Shrugs

Four months after a federal judge recommended that prison officials grant the oldest inmate at the Manhattan Correctional Center a furlough or move him to a prison hospital so he'll be more likely to live out the prison term she gave him, Luchese wiseguy Joseph (Big Joe) DiNapoli is still at the MCC. He's still alive, just barely, and he'll be there at least another month.

That's the official word from the Bureau of Prisons officials at the MCC who gave a collective shrug to White Plains Federal Judge Cathy Seibel after she asked the feds to explain "why Mr. DiNapoli has not yet been moved to" the BOP's hospital in Butner, North Carolina. That's where Big Joe is assigned to spend his 52-month term if he survives his stay at the local federal lockup, where he's been since February.

The judge made her inquiry after she received a personal appeal from veteran defense attorney Murray Richman, DiNapoli's lawyer. To Richman, DeNapoli is more than just a client: The two are long time friends who played sandlot baseball together when they were teenagers in the Bronx more than 65 years ago. Richman pleaded with Seibel to figure out a way to get Big Joe out of the MCC and "to an institution that will permit him the space and chance to survive."

Richman wrote that if DiNapoli's surrender date was "just three weeks later" than February 21, which "was literally at the commencement of the pandemic awareness period," he believed the judge, who was "totally aware of his medical condition" would have been amenable to "an application for a further delay."

Noting DiNapoli's "health conditions have greatly deteriorated" at the MCC where conditions are "not suitable for a person of a much younger age," Richman pleaded with Seibel to figure out a way to get him transferred out of the MCC because otherwise, "this can only end badly" for DiNapoli, "who turned 85 in July."

"From personal experience," Richman wrote, "growing old is not a pleasant experience. No one can anticipate its effect on the physical or spiritual aspects of a human being. I have known Joseph since we were both young men and I know how I have been affected by old age, and see what it has done to Joe."

In a follow up to Richman's letter, attorney Roger Adler wrote that designating DiNapoli to the federal prison in Danbury or the one in Otisville would eliminate the "air travel and additional security" need for a trip to Butner and also "facilitate family visits from" the Bronx, or Westchester, where his relatives reside.

On Tuesday, in the government's response to Seibel's query, prosecutor Hagan Scotten wrote that DiNapoli remains at the MCC "due to the large backlog in prisoner movements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic" and that the best estimate from the BOP and the U.S. Marshal's Service is that Big Joe will be moved "to FMC Butner in October 2020."

[mafiastudent]

Ha. As if Seibel would give two flying hoots about anyone. And certainly not the BOP - they're just lapdogs for the prosecution.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Appears Jerry doesn’t buy Massino’s ‘Mirra was hit because he was a rat’ garbage as well.

Thanks for the post.

[Extortion]

Gangland has been shit the last 2 years minus the reporting on Esposito and Fyfe