Mobster Salvatore Volpe Paid $50,000 After Restaurant Owner Gets His Wife Pregnant

You'd have thought getting a mobster's wife pregnant would carry the ultimate price. But it turns out even a cuckolded Mafioso can sometimes forgive and forget - for the right fee.

Salvatore Volpe, a low-level Bonanno family associate, told a court in New York he accepted $50,000 from a restaurateur who impregnated his wife, in exchange for not killing him.

The 48-year-old took the stand yesterday as a government witness in the trial of Bonanno boss Vincent 'Vinny Gorgeous' Basciano, who is accused of ordering the 2004 murder of  Randy Pizzolo.

Volpe, who works as a plumber, revealed his wife had an affair with the owner of Trattoria Romana, Staten Island, in 2003.

Volpe didn't discover her infidelity until she fell pregnant - although she initially tried to pretend it was his baby, he told Brooklyn Federal Court. He claimed that when he found out the truth, he broke up with his wife then went straight to his crew boss, John Palazzolo, who sent three Bonanno gangsters to confront the owner, known only as 'Anthony'.

According to Volpe, the restaurateur had his own Mafia connections, and sought protection from the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family. Except his plan backfired, and the family were allegedly keen to take the chance to appease the Bonnanos by killing him in his own trattoria basement.

The dispute led to two tense meetings at nearby Alfredo's restaurant as the rival gangs thrashed out a deal, Volpe told the court, although he was too junior to be privy to the talks. He said the Bonnanos sought to avoid killing the man, and instead proposed a $50,000 'tax', $10,000 of which would go to the DeCavalcantes as commission for brokering the deal.

According to the New York Daily News, Volpe told the court: 'Instead of [the restaurant owner] getting killed, he'd have to pay a tax. It was basically a penalty.' He gave the usual cut to his Bonanno bosses, he said, and took the rest for himself. He told the court it was a welcome sum, as the family rarely sent any work to his plumbing business.

Volpe's revelations about the inner-workings of the mob were part of his first day of testimony against Basciano, who faces the death penalty if convicted of ordering Mr Pizzolo's killing.

Yesterday Volpe said Mr Pizzolo sealed his death warrant by boasting he was going to 'level the Bronx' in revenge for not being indicted into the crime family. That was a reference to Basciano, who was then based in the Bronx as the acting Bonanno boss.

He also said the gang discussed killing defence lawyer Gerard Marrone after he put himself forward for membership - but Mr Marrone said he never asked to join.

Volpe is the second 'mob rat' to testify at the trial. Last week the court heard from former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, the New York mafia's highest-ever ranking informer. He agreed to wear a wire in jail to record a conversation with Basciano about the 2004 killing. Prosecutors played the recordings to the court last week, and the jury heard Basciano apparently tell his predecessor: 'I gave the order. Randy was a f***ing jerkoff.'

Bonanno soldier Anthony Aiello has already pleaded guilty to killing Pizzolo, but now his boss is on trial accused of ordering the murder.

Did Donald Trump Join Investors with Reputed Mobs Ties on First Casino?

For years, Donald Trump has boasted that his casinos are free of the taint of organized crime, using this claim to distinguish his gambling ventures from competitors. But Trump's casinos turn out not to be so squeaky clean.

One of his prime Atlantic City developments, the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, relied on a partnership with two investors reputedly linked to the mob, prompting New Jersey regulators to force Trump to buy them out. And he employed a known Asian organized crime figure as a vice president at his Taj Mahal casino for five years, defending the executive against regulators’ attempts to take away his license, according to law enforcement officials.

As the famously brash developer now considers a run for the presidency, this history could complicate his efforts to project an image of a trusted power in the business world. It exposes a seamy underside to Trump's rise to fortune -- one that involved intimate links to unsavory characters.

As voters learn more about such links between Trump and reputed organized crime figures, "it will get more difficult for him," says John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University. "Under that withering examination, his past associations and troubles will all emerge and could make it tough in a Republican primary."

In his 2000 book, “The America That We Deserve,” released to coincide with an earlier prospective presidential campaign, Trump boasted:

“One thing you can say about Trump, as the holder of a casino gaming license, is that I’m 100 percent clean -- something you can’t say with certainty about our current group of presidential candidates.”

Trump has sought to lean on such claims while sometimes intimating that industry competitors are themselves tainted by mob associations -- in order to saddle them with restrictions on their casino licenses.

On Oct. 5, 1993, Trump told a Congressional panel examining the rise of Indian casinos -- then, a rapidly emerging threat to Atlantic City -- that the proprietors were vulnerable to organized crime.

It is “obvious that organized crime is rampant,” Trump told the panel, according to a transcript, drawing a direct contrast to his own operations. “At the Taj Mahal I spent more money on security and security systems than most Indians building their entire casino, and I will tell you that there is no way the Indians are going to protect themselves from the mob.”

That broadside garnered Trump a reprimand from then-House Interior Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat, who complained that he had never heard more irresponsible testimony. But Trump continued, predicting that Indian casinos would spawn “the biggest crime problem in the nation’s history.”

Trump’s neglected to mention that his initial partners on his first deal in Atlantic City reputedly had their own organized crime connections: Kenneth Shapiro was identified by state and federal prosecutors as the investment banker for late Philadelphia mob boss Nicky Scarfo according to reports issued by New Jersey state commissions examining the influence of organized crime, and Danny Sullivan, a former Teamsters Union official, is described in an FBI file as having mob acquaintances. Both controlled a company that leased parcels of land to Trump for the 39-story hotel-casino.

Trump teamed up with the duo in 1980 soon after arriving in Atlantic City, according to numerous news reports and his real estate broker on the deal, Paul Longo. The developer seized on a prime piece of property and partnered with Shapiro and Sullivan, but the state’s gambling regulators were concerned enough about Shapiro and Sullivan’s mob links that they required Trump to end the partnership and buy out their shares, according to several Trump biographies.

Trump's office did not respond to requests for comment. Both Sullivan and Shapiro died in the early 1990s.

Trump later confided to a biographer that the twosome were “tough guys,” relaying a rumor that Sullivan, a 6-foot, 5-inch bear of a man, killed Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters boss who disappeared in July 1975.

“Because I heard that rumor, I kept my guard up. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be friends with this guy.’ I’ll bet you that if I didn’t hear that rumor, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now,” Trump told Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of “TrumpNation” and current national editor of The Huffington Post.

Trump told a different story to casino regulators who were deciding whether to grant him the lucrative gambling license. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these people,” he said about Shapiro and Sullivan during licensing hearings in 1982, according to "TrumpNation : The Art of Being The Donald." “Many of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of.”

Sullivan's unsavory reputation did not stop Trump from later arranging for him to be hired as a labor negotiator for the Grand Hyatt, a hotel project on Manhattan’s East Side, according to People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Trump also introduced Sullivan to his own banker at Chase, though he declined to guarantee a loan to Sullivan, reported the L.A. Times.

Longo, the real estate broker Trump used in Atlantic City on the Trump Plaza deal, says he wasn’t aware of Shapiro or Sullivan having any mob ties, and insisted Trump didn’t have any problems at all obtaining his gaming license. “In AC, you always had to be careful who you were dealing with, but Donald did things on the level,” Longo told The Huffington Post. But Wayne Barrett’s biography, “Donald Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” alleges Trump considered using Shapiro as a go-between to deliver campaign contributions to Atlantic City mayor Michael Matthews, in violation of state law.

Casino executives are prohibited from contributing to Atlantic City political campaigns in New Jersey. Sullivan later claimed that he was present when Trump proposed funneling contributions through Shapiro. Trump denied the allegation in an interview with O’Brien. Matthews, who was later forced out of office and served time in prison for extortion, did not return calls from HuffPost.

Barrett also reported that Trump once met Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, front boss of the Genovese crime family, at the Manhattan townhouse of their mutual lawyer -- infamous J. Edgar Hoover sidekick Roy Cohn. The author explained that Salerno’s company supplied all the concrete used in the Trump Towers in New York.

At the time of its publication, Trump slammed Barrett's book as “boring, nonfactual and highly inaccurate.”

Barrett's book prompted New Jersey casino regulators to investigate some of its allegations, but the state never brought any charges. "If there had been a provable charge, they would have brought it,” said former casino commission chairman Steven P. Perskie.

While Trump was making his bold statements about the integrity of the Taj Mahal at the 1993 congressional hearing on Indian gaming, a reputed organized crime figure was running junkets for the hotel, bringing in well-heeled gamblers from Canada. Danny Leung, the hotel’s former vice president for foreign marketing, was identified by a 1991 Senate subcommittee on investigations as a member of the 14K Triad, a Hong Kong group linked to murder, extortion and heroin smuggling, according to the New York Daily News.

Canadian police testified at a 1995 hearing before New Jersey’s casino commission that they observed Leung working in illegal gambling dens in Toronto alongside Asian gang leaders. Leung, who denied any affiliation with organized crime, had his license renewed by the commission over the objection of the Division of Gaming Enforcement.

Back in the early 1980s, just as Trump was dipping his toes into Atlantic City real estate, the developer did express concern to the FBI that his casino ventures might expose him to the mob and “tarnish his family’s name.” He even offered to place undercover FBI agents in his casinos, according to an FBI memo uncovered by TheSmokingGun.com. When Trump asked one of the agents his “personal opinion” on whether he should build in Atlantic City, the agent replied that there were “easier ways that Trump could invest his money.”

That proved prescient: In early 2009, Trump’s casino company in Atlantic City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, just days after Trump resigned from the board.

Thanks to Marcus Baram

Mobster Robert Perrino Allegedly Killed for Finding Religion

A Mafia associate and newspaper delivery man was 'whacked' by the mob in a horrific murder - because he found religion.

Robert Perrino was shot in the head and brutally stabbed in the ear with an ice pick by Bonanno mobsters after they allegedly became worried that he was going to church too often.

They are said to have thought turning so suddenly to religion was an indication that Perrino, an associate of the family, might be considering grassing to police.

Perrino's skeletal remains were found in 2003 in Staten Island but he had been missing from 1992, more than a decade earlier.

At the high-profile federal murder trial of Vincent Basciano, fellow Bonanno Mafioso James Tartaglione, known as 'Big Louie', shed light for the first time on the possible reason for Perrino's horrific murder.
Tartaglione said of Perrino: 'He would go to church every day. He was praying every day. They thought he may flip -- that he found religion.'He was saying certain things that he felt a little more religious.'

He added that, as a result, underboss Salvatore Vitale ordered his murder. 'Sal had him whacked out,' he told the court.

After the order was made, Perrino, who had a job on the side as superintendent of deliveries at The New York Post, was told to go to Brooklyn social club Basile's. At the club, a hit man shot him in the head and another thrust an ice pick in his ear. Perrino’s body was not found until Vitale himself began cooperating with police.

At Vitale's high-profile murder trial last year, Perrino's widow Rosalie wrote a letter that was read out in court
She wrote: 'As a result of Salvatore Vitale’s criminal inhuman behaviour, my grandson never knew his grandfather, and he and our granddaughter have grown up without this special man. 'Salvatore Vitale caused my own life to unravel and the colour in my life to drain away.'

At the Basciano trial, prosecutors also played recordings of a meeting between Basciano and Tartaglione at the Seacrest Diner on Long Island. Tartaglione was wearing a wire.

Basciano can be heard predicting his demise during the conversation. 'The end of the day, we're all gonna be in jail,' he said. 'That's going to f***ing happen.'

Basciano, 51, sneered in court as a series of boasts about his power as a mobster were replayed to the court. He said of late mob boss John Gotti, his criminal role model: 'You know what? He did it the way he wanted, and he died the way he wanted.'

He then added, of his own methods: 'I don't need anybody that anybody's gonna give me. I got my own guys. I do it myself.'

Thanks to DMR

God and the Godfather

Call it the case of God and the Godfather.

A brand new seminary is going up near the campus of Loyola University. But student Stan Golovchuk, who's also an editor on the Loyola Phoenix, found something on the construction site that now has church officials scrambling.

Golovchuk noticed a dumpster labeled "D & P Construction" across the street from the student newspaper's offices, and started investigating. "I found they have business all over the city, throughout the suburbs. And I also found out not a lot of people wanted to talk about them," Golovchuk said.

Funny, cause that's the same reaction FOX Chicago News got two years ago when we began poking around D & P's business with suburban governments, including some contracts worth millions of dollars. We even got shouted at and chased away from D & P's headquarters.

On paper, D & P is owned by a woman named Josephine DiFronzo, but an FBI report says the company is actually controlled by Josephine's husband Peter DiFronzo and his brother John "No-Nose" DiFronzo, the reputed head of the Chicago Outfit. Both brothers are convicted felons.

Two summers ago, we watched John DiFronzo walk in and out of D & P's Melrose Park construction yard on an almost daily basis. At the time, he told us he "don't do nothing" for D & P.

"I just thought it was unusual that this company that has a questionable past and reputation is doing business with the Archdiocese of Chicago. In a way it's almost as if the ultimate good is working with the ultimate evil," Golovchuk said. But things got even more bizarre when Golovchuk began to ask questions about how D & P got hired. The Archdiocese refused to talk to him, and instead issued this terse statement: "We do not arrange interviews for student newspaper reporters. We only provide student reporters with direction on how to access public information on the Archdiocesan website."

"I think it's disrespectful and rude, and I was offended and surprised. Not only because I go to a Catholic university, and the Archdiocese is connected to the school. But just because I'm a student I think it's unusual they wouldn't want to talk to me," he said.

The Archdiocese was more willing to talk to FOX Chicago News. In a statement, a spokesman said "a very large number of ongoing construction projects are conducted in the archdiocese every year. Sub-contractors, especially at this level, are hired by the general contractor without consultation with the Archdiocese."

After Golovchuk began digging, the D & P dumpsters disappeared. Henry Brothers Construction, the chief contractor for the new seminary, said the Archdiocese asked them to find another company.

Thanks to Dane Placko

Mob Wives "The Bitch is Back" Episoide

The showdown continues at Carla Facciolo's birthday party as Renee Graziano and Karen Gravano both refuse to back down. When Drita D'avanzo decides to take matters into her own hands, all hell breaks loose. Old friendships are tested and new alliances are formed. While Karen rebuilds her old relationships on Staten Island, Renee clashes with her ex-husband and Drita receives shocking news from prison.

Chicago Bus Tour Of Past Mob Boss Homes

With a half-dozen people aboard a tour bus looking on, Greg Gullo chipped grounders to his son with a fungo bat in his River Forest front yard.

The bus wasn't at his house so passengers could admire Gullo's swing last weekend, but there was a time when seeing the owner of the home in the 1400 block of Monroe Street with a baseball bat in his hands would have gotten a lot of attention. As tour guide John Binder explained, the four-bedroom house was an early purchase of up-and-coming mobster Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo — nicknamed by Al Capone for his skill at pummeling people with blunt objects.

"I think the first time the tour came by, my kids were actually out in the yard playing cops-and-robbers with squirt guns," Gullo recalled. "Everyone on the bus kind of stood up and watched."

The Gullos have gotten used to the occasional tours led by Binder, their neighbor, a mob history buff and a University of Illinois at Chicago professor. He began offering tours devoted to Oak Park and River Forest's upper-class underbelly in 2005.

To be sure, the area boasts more admirable figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway, but it has a rich mob history as well. The 10-mile circuit of Binder's tour passes more than a dozen homes that once belonged to top mob figures, including the Oak Park bungalow where Sam "Mooney" Giancana was gunned down in 1975.

"For the most part, the hoods appear to have wanted the same things as other folks in the suburbs: someplace quiet, away from work, with good schools for their kids," said Binder, author of the book "The Chicago Outfit."

A prime suspect in the killing, Dominic "Butch" Blasi, lived just three miles away from the Giancana house. The .22-caliber pistol used in the murder was found in a forest preserve between the two houses.

The Giancana hit was a rare instance of mob violence in the suburbs, Binder said. Like their neighbors in legitimate businesses, mob bosses commuted into the city to do most of their business. In fact, after Accardo's house was burglarized in 1978, mob hit men reportedly found, tortured and killed all six suspected burglars — a revenge spree that terrified hoods across the city.

Thanks to Andy Grimm