Two Faces of Junior Gotti Presented to Jury

Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Junior Gotti

Prosecutor says he's a mobster; defense says he's legit

A prosecutor told a jury Tuesday that John "Junior" Gotti was like his father, a merciless, violent mobster, but a defense lawyer said the son was out of the mob and ready to start a new and honorable Gotti legacy. A jury last fall acquitted Gotti of securities fraud but deadlocked on racketeering counts, leading to the retrial that started Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joon Hyun Kim and Gotti lawyer Charles Carnesi went on so long that the judge yawned, jurors fidgeted and Carnesi apologized. All the while, Gotti sat forward in his chair, following the speaker with his eyes as Kim pointed at him and accused him of a "life of crime." Carnesi later portrayed him as a man determined to steer his family to a mob-free future.

Gotti showed emotion only when Carnesi told jurors that his father, John Gotti Sr., suffered a "horrible death" from cancer in prison in 2002, 10 years after he was sentenced to life in prison after his own racketeering conviction. The prosecutor said the 42-year-old Gotti became upset that Curtis Sliwa was trashing his father on his morning radio show in 1992. Kim said Gotti instructed underlings in the Gambino mob family to kidnap Sliwa and beat him.

On June 19, 1992, Sliwa got into a cab at dawn outside his Lower East Side apartment only to discover that the rear doors and windows were inoperable from within and that a gunman had been hiding on the front passenger floor. He was shot twice and critically injured but managed to catapult into the front of the cab and out a window. "That was the price John Gotti made Curtis Sliwa pay for exercising his right to free speech," Kim said. Sliwa recovered and resumed his radio show and his attacks against the Gotti family. Sliwa is scheduled to testify at the current trial, just as he did at the last, which ended in September.

Kim said Gotti joined the century-old Gambino family in the 1980s, climbing the mob's ladder from associate to soldier to high-ranking captain to street boss after his father was put in prison. He said the Gambino family had hundreds of low-level mobsters virtually controlling parts of the city's construction industry for more than a decade as payoffs made their way to Gotti's pockets.

Carnesi said the government's case was built on the testimony of mob killers who made up lies to avoid life prison sentences and knew that Gotti's name could win them the best deal. He said Gotti never ordered the kidnapping and beating of Sliwa.
Carnesi said Gotti initially was under the spell of his larger-than-life father, but decided to reject organized crime when he pleaded guilty to other racketeering charges in 1999, serving five years in prison and giving up $1.5 million.

Godfather Facing Rat Infestation

Friends of ours: Bonanno Crime Family, Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, Joseph Massino, Patrick DeFilippo, James "Big Louie" Tartaglione
Friends of mine: Frank Santoro

Call it the March of the Rats.

When acting Bonanno boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano goes on trial, he'll face an extraordinary number of Mafia turncoats. The Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office has a list of "more than 75 witnesses, including 18 cooperators," according to court papers filed by Basciano's lawyer. "There is not one trial in public consciousness that has seen as many rats," one legal insider said.

Former family godfather Joseph Massino, who was convicted in 2004 of committing seven rubouts but cooperated to skirt the death penalty, is expected to make his rat debut. Many of the Bonannos who testified against Massino will also be witnesses against Basciano and his co-defendant, reputed capo Patrick DeFilippo, when the trial begins Thursday, a source said.

Basciano and DeFilippo are charged with a host of illegal-gambling counts and attempting to murder David Nunez in 1985 over rival gambling operations. The hit failed, and Nunez is alive and well but currently serving a three-year stint in an upstate prison for sexually abusing two young girls.

On top of that, Basciano, 46, allegedly took part in the February 2001 murder of mob associate Frank Santoro, who was blasted with a shotgun while walking his dog after he plotted to kidnap one of Basciano's sons.

Playing the part of the Pied Piper is prosecutor Greg Andres, whom Basciano allegedly plotted to whack for decimating the crime family through numerous convictions. Basciano is charged with that crime in a separate indictment, and Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis said Andres is not allowed to mention it to the jury. Andres could often be seen glaring at Basciano and recently took umbrage with the reputed crime boss' passing comments to him and an unorthodox habit of standing next to his lawyers during side conversations with prosecutors and the judge throughout jury selection. "I don't want to talk to him, I don't want to hear from him, and I don't think he should be at the sidebar," Andres said during one of the side sessions, according to court papers filed late last week.

Also in the prosecutors' arsenal of evidence is a recorded conversation between Basciano and turncoat James "Big Louie" Tartaglione in which Basciano downplays the chances of being convicted of the Santoro murder, which could put him away for life.

Grandy Jury Indicts 32 New York Mobsters

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Liborio Bellomo, Ralph Coppola, Michael "Chunk" Londonio, John "Buster" Ardito, Ralph "The Undertaker" Balsamo, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianiello, Gambino Crime Family, Junior Gotti

The acting boss of the city's most powerful crime family and 31 others are charged in a new indictment with racketeering crimes, including murder, extortion, drug trafficking and money laundering, authorities announced Thursday.

The indictment "delivers an absolute body blow" to the Genovese family's structure, said FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon. He said 30 people had been arrested. The 42-count indictment unsealed Thursday accuses the defendants of engaging in criminal activity for more than a decade.

U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia also released details about a corrupt lawyer whom he said had enabled the family's acting boss to order a murder from prison and direct other crimes. The lawyer, Peter J. Peluso, pleaded guilty last summer, admitted his role in the murder and agreed to cooperate against his client, Liborio S. Bellomo. Bellomo was charged with authorizing the 1998 murder of Ralph Coppola, a former Genovese soldier and acting capo, as part of a wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy involving violent extortion, drug dealing, firearms trafficking and murder.

The arrests follow a three-year investigation into the family's activities in the Bronx, Harlem and the Westchester County suburbs north of the city.

Garcia said Peluso pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, admitting participation in numerous crimes, including extortion and obstruction of justice, as he shuttled important messages between family members, some of whom were in prison. He said he carried one message from Bellomo sanctioning Coppola's murder, Garcia said.

The prosecutor said the brazen nature of the crime family was demonstrated in December, when authorities went to arrest Michael "Chunk" Londonio. He fired shots at New York State troopers, wounding two of them, before being killed in the return fire. "I would look at the Londonio shooting as the best example we have of the public safety threat organizations like this pose," Garcia said. "It adds to an overall impression of violence, viciousness reaching the streets of our community."

The indictment and court papers related to Peluso's guilty plea were unsealed in the same Manhattan courthouse where John Gotti Jr., whose father headed the Gambino crime family, was on trial for allegedly arranged the kidnapping of Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. A similar indictment last year charged members of the Gambino family with racketeering.

Others indicted by the grand jury include longtime Genovese captain John "Buster" Ardito and Ralph "The Undertaker" Balsamo, who oversaw a large cocaine distribution network in New York, according to the indictment.

Ardito, Balsamo and others also are charged with attempting to tamper with several witnesses, including one who had his ear partially bitten off in a fight with a Genovese soldier.

The Justice Department has yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty for Bellomo. There have only been three federal executions since 1977 versus more than 940 by the states in that time, Justice Department data show.

Federal agents say Bellomo is one of a string of chiefs to run the Genovese mafia family since the 1992 arrest of Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, who dominated the mafia for most of the 1980s and 1990s before dying in prison last year.

Last July, 20 Genovese members were indicted in New York on racketeering charges in a separate case including another reputed acting boss, Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianiello. A month later, 14 accused Genovese family members were indicted in New Jersey.

George Stefano's: An Offer We Can't Refuse -- The Mafia in the Mind of America

Reviews by:

Allan Barra

Carlin Romano
James Sweeney

An Offer We Can't Refuse - Allan Barra Review

The Mafia Mystique, Italian-Americans have love/hate affair with the dark side of their heritage.

An Offer We Can't Refuse -- The Mafia in the Mind of America. George De Stefano. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Years ago, writing about the legacy of Mario Puzo, I said, "If there is a God and he is indeed Catholic, then Puzo is burning in hell." Before The Godfather was published in 1969, historians of organized crime in the 20th century told us that some major stars of the modern mob had names like Arnold Rothstein, Owney Madden, and Logan and Fred Billingsley. After The Godfather, the only major crime figures who got any attention were the ones whose names ended in vowels.

Thanks to this myth-mongering hack, Frank Sinatra will forever be remembered as the man who, through his fictional counterpart, Johnny Fontaine, crooned I Have But One Heart at his godfather's daughter's wedding. It is now taken for fact that Sinatra owed his comeback and hence his success not to his talent but to the Mafia; apparently they held guns to the heads of people, forcing them to buy all those Sinatra albums.

The provocative and lively An Offer We Can't Refuse by George De Stefano, a journalist and cultural critic whose work can be most often read in The Nation, has convinced me that I've been too tough on Puzo. The Godfather, the book and the movie, did, after all, succeed in reviving interest in Italian-American culture at a time when it appeared to be fading into the suburban landscape. I can only speak for members of my father's family, who rather enjoyed the attention and even reveled in the idea that they might actually be a bit feared because of their name.

For De Stefano, as for many of our generation, Francis Ford Coppola's film was an epiphany. The gay Baby Boomer son of a Neapolitan auto mechanic and a Sicilian housewife, De Stefano, by the time he was in college, had drifted far from his parents' world: "The Stones' Sticky Fingers was on my stereo and a Black Panther poster adorned my dorm room wall. My identity was radical hippie freak. My ethnic background was just that, background."

An Offer We Can't Refuse invites Italian-Americans of all backgrounds to the family table to discuss the issues of how mob-related movies and television shows have affected the very notion of what their heritage still means in the 21st century.

It's a big table. At the head is Richard Gambino, whose 1974 book Blood of My Blood -- The Dilemma of Italian-Americans was the first serious work of nonfiction written on the subject; sitting in the middle are Gay Talese, Nicholas Gage, and nearly every other prominent, second-generation Italian-American journalist; and fighting for attention down at the end of the table are third-generation would-be personas importante such as Maria Laurino, Maria Russo, Bill Tonelli, and, in the interests of full disclosure, me (I am quoted twice by De Stefano). As you can imagine, it's one heck of a noisy table.

The principal topic of discussion is not so much the Mafia, whose power most experts seem to feel is dwindling, as the Mafia's mystique. But as journalist Anthony Mancini puts it, "It's just too good a myth to abandon."

The best movies and shows about mobsters and their families -- Coppola's Godfather movies, Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, The Sopranos, the late, lamented cult TV series Wise Guy -- were never really about the mob anyway; they were always about the vicissitudes of Italian-American family life and the perils of maintaining tradition in the face of assimilation, a metaphor for the American immigrant experience.

As a Russian neighbor of mine put it, "I never really thought The Godfather was about crime. I thought it was about the part where Don Corleone tells Michael he wanted something better for him than he had had."

These shows provide an answer to why the people who gave the world Dante, da Vinci, Boccaccio, Verdi and Rossini have produced so few literary artists in this country. Their grandparents might have come here without being able to write in their own language, much less English, but Coppola, Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Quentin Tarantino and several others have used their experiences to give the world the poetry that their ancestors couldn't. Don Corleone gave Michael something better after all.

But, says De Stefano, "Consider another possibility. Italian-Americans owe their high visibility in American popular culture in large measure to the very gangster image so many deplore. If the mafioso as cultural archetype were to become extinct, might Italian Americans themselves drop off the radar screen?"

In other words, if the Mafia myth peters out, does that mean the end of the Italian-American as a protagonist in our popular culture?

It's a dicey question, but after careful consideration De Stefano answers with a resounding "no." The Mafia myth, he steadfastly maintains, cannot be the last word: "Ethnicity remains a riveting, complicated drama of American life, and popular art that illuminates its workings still is needed. Italian America still has many more stories to tell."

Thanks to Allen Barra

Feds Get 2nd Shot at Junior

Friends of ours: Junior Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo

After narrowly ducking a conviction that could have put him away for 30 years, John "Junior" Gotti faces a fresh showdown this week with federal prosecutors, who saw their star witnesses sliced up on the stand like fine prosciutto last time around. But a rematch of Gotti vs. the government won't be a simple replay of last year's trial, when a lone holdout juror derailed the bid to nail the ex-Gambino crime king for plotting to kidnap radio host Curtis Sliwa, loan sharking and extortion in the construction trade.

This time, there's a new attorney for Junior, along with fewer witnesses against him, pared-down charges - the first jury cleared him of securities fraud - and no co-defendants. And while Gotti will take center stage by himself, at least he can walk through the front door: Judge Shira Scheindlin sprung him on $7 million bail following the mistrial.

The 42-year-old son of the late godfather John Gotti has spent the last five months of freedom with his family - and preparing hard for the new trial, say sources close to him. His mother, Victoria, sister Angela, brother Peter and other family members are all expected to be in attendance as prosecutor Michael McGovern calls at least three key turncoat witnesses, including murderous mob rat Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo. In the first trial, DiLeonardo had a staredown with Gotti, his former pal, calling him "brother" and claiming that he thought of Gotti when he gulped pills in a failed suicide bid.

Cross-examining him will be Junior's new lawyer, Charles Carnesi, who repped Gotti's co-defendant Louis "Louie Black" Mariani in the first trial. Carnesi is expected to conduct the same grilling that Gotti's first-round lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, gave the witnesses, using their own lies and vile connduct to hammer at their credibility. "The main advantage Gotti has now is that every witness who testified against him was blown away on the stand," said Lichtman.

Gotti will claim again that he quit the mob in 1999 after pleading guilty to unrelated fraud charges. The new jury has seven men and five women - the reverse gender makeup of the last jury. This time around, four white males, three black males, two white females, two black females and a Hispanic woman will deliberate.

One thing won't change: the name of the defendant. "The Gotti name is still a stumbling block for any criminal defense," said Lichtman. "It just intimidates so many people."

"Godfather" Actor Killed

A debonair 68-year-old actor - whose half-century career included a memorable role in all three "Godfather" movies - was last night dragged to his death in a horrific tour-bus accident on the Upper West Side, police sources said.

Richard Bright, whose piercing blue eyes and dark hair saw him often cast as a cop or criminal, crumpled to the ground as he was hit by the rear wheel of an Academy bus at about 6:30 p.m. as it turned left on Columbus Avenue at 86th Street, according to witnesses. The driver was unaware of the accident until he reached the Port Authority terminal and was questioned by police. There was no indication of a crime and no charges were filed, police sources said.

Bright, whose winter coat and dentures were left behind on the street, was pronounced dead at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. "His face was beat up. His leg was mangled," said Teri Robinson, who saw the accident from the back of a taxi. "It was very startling."

Movie fans would best know Bright from his performance as Al Neri, the bodyguard to Al Pacino's Michael Corleone character in "The Godfather" trilogy. He played a key part in one of the most haunting scenes in "The Godfather II," when he shot Corleone's older brother Fredo (John Cazale) during a fishing trip.

The veteran actor also had guest roles in cop shows, such as "Law & Order," "Third Watch" and "The Sopranos."

"He had beautiful blue eyes and a beautiful smile," said neighbor Graham Gilbert. Gilbert and other shocked residents of Bright's brownstone on 85th Street called the veteran actor was a kind man, who would help with the upkeep of the building. "He was always looking out for the neighbors," Gilbert said.

Garrett Ewald, who learned of the accident as he was sitting down to watch Bright's 1976 movie, "Marathon Man," said the elderly actor often used a cane to walk. He said Bright, in recent years, had found he had a lot of time on his hands after his wife and teenage son moved to California, allowing him to help young actors with coaching. "You would see him on the stoop talking to [a young actor], coaching him on how to handle an audition," Ewald said.

A manager at the 3 Star Coffee Shop, near the site of the fatal accident, said Bright ate at the diner every night, and was probably on his way to the eatery when he was struck.

Reputed Former Mob Leader 'Tony Ripe' Civella Dead

Friends of ours: Anthony "Tony Ripe" Civella, Nick Civella, Carl "Cork" Civella, Joseph Auippa

Anthony Civella, said by federal investigators to have headed organized crime in Kansas City in the late 1980s and 1990s, is dead at 75.

Passantino Brothers Funeral Home said Thursday that it was handling arrangements and that rites for Civella were pending, but that it did not have information on when he died or on his survivors. There was no phone listing for a Civella in the Kansas City area, and the city's vital statistics office said it had not yet received a death certificate for him.

Civella once told a judge he had undergone seven heart bypass operations. Civella, whose nickname was "Tony Ripe," was the nephew of Nick Civella, the reputed leader of the Kansas City mob at a time when it allegedly worked with other organized crime families in Chicago, Milwaukee and Cleveland in schemes to skim money from Las Vegas casinos.

After Nick Civella's death in 1983, leadership was said to have passed to his brother, Carl "Cork" Civella, father of Anthony. Nick Civella died while under indictment as one of 12 people accused in a skimming case involving the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Subsequently, his brother Carl was among those charged in another Las Vegas skimming case involving the Argent Corp., which owned the Stardust and Fremont casinos. Carl Civella was one of five who pleaded guilty in that case. Five other defendants, including Joseph Aiuppa, described by the government as head of the Chicago mob, were convicted at a trial in Kansas City.

That trial included testimony from Roy Lee Williams, former president of the Teamsters Union, who said Nick Civella paid him $1,500 a month from late 1974 to mid-1981. He said the money was in return for his vote as a trustee of the union's Central States Pension Fund for a $62.75 million loan that enabled Argent Corp. to buy the two casinos.

Anthony Civella was convicted of bookmaking in the 1970s and served 3 1/2 years in prison. He had business interests that included automobile sales, restaurants, insurance and property ownership.

After his father and other reputed Kansas City mobsters went to prison, Civella was reported to have moved up to the leadership. In 1991, he and two associates were convicted on eight counts of fraud related to the resale of prescription drugs. They were accused of having brought more than $1 million worth of drugs at deep discounts, claiming they were intended for nursing homes, then re-selling them to wholesalers on the West Coast.

After his release from prison in 1996, Civella was barred from entering casinos in Missouri and Nevada. Gaming commissions cited his convictions, which included driving a vehicle without the owner's consent in 1964, conspiring to run interstate gambling in 1975 and running a sports bookmaking operation and continuing criminal business in 1984.

In his 1984 plea, Civella signed a statement acknowledging that prosecutors could prove his role in other crimes, including casino skimming, stealing from charity bingo games and setting up front companies to hide his ownership. He also acknowledged prosecutors could prove he conspired to commit murders and other violence to punish underlings, silence government witnesses and eliminate competing mob factions.

"His death reflects a passing of an era in Kansas City's colorful history," said David Helfrey, a St. Louis attorney who headed the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force at Kansas City during the casino skimming trials.

Chicago Water Department Worker Charged With Lying To Feds

A Chicago city worker fired for being AWOL from his water department job was charged Tuesday with lying to federal agents in the government's two-year investigation of Chicago's corruption-plagued Hired Truck Program. Frank Cannatello, 30, of Chicago became the forty-third person charged in the investigation that recently has branched out to include alleged city hiring fraud by Mayor Richard M. Daley's former patronage chief and other political operatives.

The Hired Truck Program, which cost taxpayers $38 million at its peak two years ago, was designed to save money by allowing the city to outsource its hauling work to private truckers. Prosecutors say the program has been awash in payoff money and fraud. Some of the companies that got sizable payouts through the program are tied to the mob.

Cannatello was charged with one count of lying to federal agents Dec. 14 when he said he had nothing to do with FRC Trucking Co., which made $187,000 in Hired Truck payments in three years. Ownership of the now dissolved company was listed to a female relative. Prosecutors said Cannatello helped to organize and operate the company. A message seeking comment was left Tuesday at the office of Cannatello's lawyer, Richard Jalovec.

Among other things, prosecutors said Cannatello asked another city worker, Randy Aderman, to help FRC get city hauling work and Aderman did so through the water department. Aderman already has been charged in the investigation along with former city Clerk James Laski. Aderman appeared for arraignment before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Norgle Sr. on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty. Norgle set a status hearing in the case for March 13.

Cannatello's cousin, John Canatello, 60, of suburban Palos Park and Marco Island, Fla., was sentenced Jan. 19 to 27 months in federal prison, fined $14,000 and ordered to forfeit $100,000 for taking part in a payoff scheme to get Hired Truck business for another trucking company.

Frank Cannatello was among nine employees fired by the city water department on orders from Daley last June after it was discovered that they had been electronically logged in at their jobs at the city's Jardine Filtration Plant when in fact they were elsewhere. Officials said a two-month review of security tapes showed the employees had used each other's identification cards to make it appear that they were working when they were not.

Another former water department employee fired last June and now indicted along with Laski and Aderman is John Briatta, who is the brother-in-law of Cook County Commissioner John Daley -- the mayor's brother. Briatta, who is to be arraigned before Norgle on Thursday, is charged with accepting payoffs from Aderman in exchange for Hired Truck Program assignments.

No Mafia Princess: 'Sopranos' Star Falco Likes to Shake Things Up

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

In the intense "Freedomland," in which a missing boy, prejudice and the police collide, Edie Falco is practically unrecognizable. Her Carmela of "The Sopranos" is gone. In the film, Falco plays Karen Collucci, a missing-child advocate who helps Julianne Moore's anguished mother. "I looked different because that's what was decided upon," she said about her black wig and absence of makeup. "I had very little to say about it, but I was happy for it."

Falco has much to be happy about these days. Last year's battle with cancer found this private person resigned to living a public life. "There is really nothing that has happened to me that hasn't happened to a lot of other people," she said during a one-on-one interview. "So it's not like it's so earth-shattering. There's nothing in my life that I'm ashamed of, and there's nothing in my life that I care all that much about people knowing about because it's just a life, just another life."

Having adopted a baby boy, now nearly 14 months old, Falco is happily surprised at how well at age 42 she has adapted to motherhood. "I never actually thought that I would be a mom, and then it became sort of a thing in the last number of years. I just knew that it was time," she said. "I didn't know what I'd be like. I think that we all have an innate ability to raise children; you don't have to read all the books and listen to all the advice. Under the best circumstances, it's pretty natural."

As for her final months as Carmela Soprano, Falco said, "We're all in denial, first of all. But we've got a long way to go before we're down to the last few. We've been filming the last year, and we have another year to go."

Even her mother can't pry any plot revelations out of her. But Falco admits it is amazing that a show as phenomenally popular as "Sopranos" can keep its secrets until airtime. "I can't say I know why we've been so lucky - omerta," Falco said then laughed, referring to the mafia code of silence - or death. "For the most part, we've been able to keep stuff secret, and I think that's been part of the fun of watching the show, that very much like real life a lot of this stuff is very surprising."

Karen in "Freedomland" is a small role, but it is a chance to let people forget about Carmela - at least temporarily. "You know, there's a lot of good and bad stuff that comes with notoriety," Falco said. "Perhaps a lot of people would want to stick to roles like that knowing that they have had success. But that is entirely uninteresting to me. I'm in this business for my own reasons, and most of them are pretty selfish. I happen to really enjoy getting to be a lot of different people."

A late bloomer, Falco has had a bounty with "Sopranos." She's won three SAG Awards, two Golden Globes and three Emmys, starred on Broadway in hit revivals of " 'night, Mother" and "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," and won praise in John Sayles' "Sunshine State."

"I love everything about acting. I hate to be that person, but I really do love it so much. The fame is very hard because I wasn't cut out for it," she said. "It wasn't part of my game plan. What I miss most of all is wandering anonymously through the city."

Thanks to Stephen Schaefer