Mob War?

Friends of Ours: Gambino Crime Family, Bonanno Crime Family, Carmine Sciandra, Ronald Carlucci, Michael Viga

The feds are keeping an eye out for a possible gangland blow-up following the shooting of a reputed Gambino capo on Staten Island, law-enforcement sources said yesterday. Mob heavy Carmine Sciandra was wounded Wednesday in the dust-up, which began after two Bonanno thugs and a retired NYPD cop showed up at a produce market he co-owned thinking Sciandra's brother Sal had groped the cop's daughter, police said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn and the FBI's organized-crime branch are watching in case any mobsters retaliate, sources said. "We're on top of it," said a law-enforcement official.

Yesterday, the two reputed Bonanno members, Ronald Carlucci, 62, and Michael Viga, 59, were released after the Staten Island District Attorney's Office decided not to press charges. The two were let go because of a lack of evidence, sources said.Ultimate Cigar Sampler - $120 value for $29.95

Former cop Patrick Balsamo brought Carlucci and Viga along to the Top Tomato market on Victory Boulevard, cops said. He started smashing some windows because his 18-year-old daughter had allegedly been groped and then fired from her cashier job at the market run by Sal Sciandra, cops said.

At Balsamo's arraignment yesterday, prosecutor Michele Molfetta told the court Balsamo is accused of pulling the trigger. "The defendant is charged with shooting the victim, a crime that resulted in serious physical injury" with damage to Carmine Sciandra's colon, she said in Staten Island Criminal Court. Prosecutors said a .25-caliber gun was used and a .25-caliber shell casing was recovered at the scene.

Defense lawyer Felix Gilroy said his client voluntarily turned over the weapon. The former cop was released on $25,000 bail and is due back in court Jan. 19 to face charges of assault, weapons possession and felony criminal mischief.

From Various Sources

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Gambino Capo is Shot on Staten Island

Friends of Ours: Gambino Crime Family, Bonanno Crime Family, Carmine Sciandra, John Gotti, Junior Gotti, Ronald Carlucci, Michael Viga

A reputed Gambino capo was shot in the gut in Staten Island during a window-smashing, bat-swinging brawl with two Bonanno thugs and a retired NYPD officer who attacked him because they thought his brother groped the cop's daughter, police said yesterday.

The Gambinos are "screaming for blood" over the attack on powerful capo Carmine Sciandra at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday outside the Top Tomato produce market, which he owns with his brothers.

Authorities fear a mob war could erupt because the brazen attack was not approved by other bosses. "This was a renegade act," a police source said. "The Gambinos are going to want some retribution."

Cops identified the suspects as Patrick Balsamo, a former city cop; Ronald Carlucci, 62, a "made" member of the rival Bonanno crime family; and mob associate Michael Viga, 59, of Staten Island. Balsamo allegedly brought along the two men as muscle to help him when he confronted Sciandra because his brother, Sal, allegedly groped his 18-year-old daughter, who worked at the market.

According to police sources, Balsamo smashed some windows at Top Tomato. In the ensuing melee, someone shot Sciandra in the belly. Balsamo and his two sidekicks allegedly fled in two sedans with three bat-wielding guys running after them from market. Balsamo and his two cohorts were arrested without incident after police spotted them at East Broadway and Shadow Lane down the block from Viga's house.

Sciandra was listed in serious condition. "He's going to need another surgery," said Top Tomato's lawyer, Joseph Benefante. "The bullet is lodged in his muscle tissue." Sciandra was once considered a dark-horse candidate to lead the family after the late "Teflon Don" John Gotti grew ill in prison and son John A. "Junior" Gotti was also jailed.

Balsamo served only eight years as a cop before retiring with a disability pension. A grand jury cleared him of wrongdoing for his role in the 1990 shooting of a disturbed man who rushed at him and his partner with a knife. Balsamo was charged with criminal mischief in Wednesday's brawl.

The two Bonanno thugs were charged with assault and weapons possession police did not specify which was the triggerman.

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Sentence put off for alleged Gambino Capo

Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, John Gotti, Salvatore Locascio

The sentencing today of a North Naples resident charged with receiving several million dollars from a massive, illegal phone cramming operation that federal prosecutors said was run by the Mafia was postponed to later this month.

Salvatore Locascio, 45, was set to receive up to 10 years in prison at a hearing today in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The sentencing may get put off into next year, U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Robert Nardoza said Thursday. "The defense is looking for even more time," Nardoza said.

Judge Carol Amon will decide whether to give Locascio, 9778 Bent Grass Bend, the 10-year maximum. Federal sentencing guidelines call for between five and six years in prison. Locascio's attorneys have said they would ask the judge to impose a sentence not involving incarceration, including probation.

While Locascio's attorneys have denied Locascio was affiliated with the Mafia, prosecutors say he was a leader in the Gambino Organized Crime Family. And the defense signed an agreement that will allow the court to sentence him as a capo, or captain, in the mob family once headed by John Gotti.

Locascio pleaded guilty in February to receiving the proceeds of a $200 million phone cramming scam. He had faced up to 20 years in prison and pleaded guilty to money laundering. Also under the plea agreement, the court ordered a $23.5 million asset forfeiture divided among Locascio and six other co-defendants. Locascio's share of the forfeiture is $4.7 million.

The agreement with the prosecutors says the payments from the phone scam to Locascio's company, Creative Program Communications, won't be considered "tribute" payments. The indictment alleged the scam was run in part by lower-level operatives who paid Locascio kickbacks because he's a captain in the crime family. Locascio remains free on $10 million bond.

Thanks to Chris Colby

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Pier Pressure

Friends of ours: Alex "The Ox" DeBrizzi, Anthony Scotto, Gambino Family, Genovese Family, George Barone, Tommy Cafaro
Friends of mine: Al Cernadas

Mob domination of the dock workers' union is the stuff of legend in New York. For more than half a century, the International Longshoremen's Association has provided a haven for a rogues' gallery of hoodlums, ranging from Alex "The Ox" DeBrizzi, who kept his local union's treasury in a jar at home, to the urbane Anthony Scotto, the ex-Mafia capo who called mayors and governors his friends. With leadership like that, the ILA had a decades-long losing streak in the city's courtrooms, as scores of officials were convicted of extortion, racketeering, and worse crimes perpetrated from their waterfront roosts. But that streak ended dramatically this month when a pair of high-salaried ILA officials won acquittal on fraud and conspiracy charges in Brooklyn federal court. "This case is about the Mafia's stranglehold on the ILA," prosecutors promised jurors when the case got under way in late September. But eight weeks later, the jury found Harold Daggett, the head of New Jersey's most powerful local union, and Arthur Coffey, the leader of its growing Florida chapters, not guilty on all counts. Jurors even voted to acquit a third defendant, an alleged captain in the Genovese crime family who disappeared and was believed to have been murdered midway through the trial. "The jury was so disgusted they acquitted an empty chair," said Gerald McMahon, a defense attorney in the case.

The only conviction was of a man named Al Cernadas, the former leader of a large Newark local union who had the bad luck to have pled guilty before the trial began, admitting that he knew about, but failed to prevent, a mob plot to foist an expensive medical plan upon the members.

Immediately after the acquittals on November 8, the union issued a press release hailing the verdict. "Today is a wonderful day for our ILA," said international union president John Bowers, whose father and uncle once ruled the "pistol local" on Manhattan's West Side docks, so named because that weapon settled all disputes.

Two days later, Bowers's office announced that the union had taken additional cleanup steps. A new code of ethics that bars officials from associating with organized crime figures, among other prohibitions, was made a permanent part of the ILA constitution; an outside investigator - former state appellate judge Milton Mollen - was given an expanded, three-year term to look into corruption allegations, and a former top federal judge, George C. Pratt, was named to serve as a final arbiter on ethical matters. "It is a checks-and-balances system to show that the ILA is serious about reform and protecting members' rights," said union spokesman James McNamara.

The union's other acknowledged goal is to short-circuit a civil racketeering case against the ILA filed in Brooklyn by the U.S. Department of Justice this summer. The lawsuit alleges that the union has long been controlled by the Gambino and Genovese crime families and calls for a court-im posed trusteeship and the ouster of Bowers and other top officials. When the lawsuit was filed in July, Bowers accused the government of perpetuating "an outdated stereotype" of the union and focusing on "stale allegations of wrongdoing." Bowers said the feds had ignored its efforts to turn itself around, including adopting the ethics code and hiring Judge Mollen.

"The ILA's commitment to honest trade unionism and vigorous representation of its members' interests is second to none," said Bowers. But not everyone's been convinced. Tony Perlstein, co-chairman of a group called the Longshore Workers' Coalition which has members at ports around the country, said the union has much further to go. "I don't believe having an ethics counsel is sufficient," he said. The coalition is demanding direct elections for members of the union's executive council and salary caps for officers. (At the Brooklyn trial, prosecutors made a point of introducing evidence of the high salaries paid Coffey, who took in $353,000 in 2003, and Daggett, who topped out at $475,000 the same year.)

Part of the government's problem was that the defendants were not accused of violent crimes, while its own witnesses had murder and mayhem on their resumes.

The prosecution's most compelling testimony came from George Barone, an ailing 81-year-old former top ILA leader and Genovese mobster. Barone, whose testimony helped convict a group of Gambino mobsters at an earlier trial, said he had committed more hits than he had counted. "I didn't keep a scorecard, y'know," he barked at one point. His tool of choice was a gun, and his deadly m.o., defense attorney McMahon pointed out, was one shot to the chest to stun the victim, followed by a kill shot to the head.

At some point in the early 1980s Barone had threatened to kill Daggett, then a young union official. Barone told the story in a matter-of-fact manner, acknowledging that Daggett's demise was discussed and that someone had pegged a shot in his direction during the confrontation. But then an unusual thing happened. Guided by George Daggett, his attorney (and cousin), Harold Daggett took the stand and gave his own account of the incident.

He was in the midst of making plans to build a new headquarters for his union, Local 1804-1, moving it from the lower West Side docks to northern New Jersey, where the jobs had already migrated, when a mob messenger named Tommy Cafaro told him that Barone wanted to see him. Daggett said he agreed to get in the car, and it raced up the FDR Drive to East 115th Street. There, he was escorted into a large fruit and vegetable store, through a steel door to a darkened room at the rear. "It was dark, boxes all around, no windows," said Daggett. A single lightbulb illuminated Barone, who sat with his back to him. Two other men stood at the door. On the floor was a large, empty canvas bag with an open zipper. All of a sudden, Barone threw down the paper he'd been reading and snarled at Daggett: "You motherfucker, who the fuck are you to take this local away from me? I'm going to fuckin' kill you." Daggett broke down sobbing as he told the story ("blubbering," as the Daily News' John Marzulli reported it). Judge Leo Glasser told him to relax and take a drink of water. Daggett soldiered on. " 'This is my fuckin' local; I built this local,' " he said Barone screamed. " 'I'll kill you, your wife, and children.' He pulled out a gun and shoved it in my head. I said, 'Please, don't do this to me,' and he cocked back the trigger, and he said, 'I will blow your brains all over the fuckin' room. I'm going to kill you.' "

Barone didn't shoot. Instead, after some more growling, he told Daggett he could leave. But he couldn't. "I was so nervous I urinated all over myself," Daggett testified. "I couldn't walk. I said, 'I can't move.' I thought one of them was going to shoot me in the back of the head, and I opened the door, and I could hardly walk. I walked and I kept thinking, 'They're going to shoot me.' " At the door, Barone dismissed the staggering Daggett. "Take this guy back to his local," Barone instructed his emissary.

Pending the outcome of the trial, Daggett and Coffey were both suspended from their posts, albeit with pay. Since their acquittal, "they're unsuspended," an ILA spokesman said. But Judge Mollen, the union's ethical-practices counsel, still has jurisdiction over any violations he finds. "I have obtained the transcript of the trial and I have a big stack of it on the floor," he said. "I am reading."

Thanks to Tom Robbins - Village Voice

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A Mafia case that matters

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Gambino Crime Family, Vincent "Chin" Gigante, Peter Gotti, George Barone, Lawrence Ricci
Friends of mine: Harold Daggett, Arthur Coffey

Harold Daggett, of Sparta, will likely find out in the next few days which story a federal jury in Brooklyn believes: that he is a hardworking mechanic who worked his way up the ranks of the waterfront union, or — as the U.S. government says — that he is a "longtime associate" of organized crime. If the jury opts for the latter, Daggett, a 59-year-old father of three, could be headed to prison for up to 20 years.

After hearing the case for seven weeks in U.S. District Court, jurors spent all day Thursday deliberating and will return Monday morning to continue. Lawyers in the case hope they will reach a verdict by midweek. Daggett, the assistant general organizer of the International Longshoreman's Association, was indicted last year along with fellow executive Arthur Coffey, of Florida. Both are charged with extortion conspiracy and fraud for allegedly steering lucrative union contracts to mob-controlled businesses.

It's the latest offensive aimed at rooting out Mafia corruption on the docks — something the government has been trying to do for decades, since Marlon Brando starred in the 1954 film "On the Waterfront." Only now, the goal might be in sight.

Control of the docks has historically been shared by two of the "five families" of the New York Mafia — with the Genovese family in Manhattan, New Jersey and South Florida, and the Gambino family in Brooklyn and Staten Island. With the bosses of both families, Vincent "Chin" Gigante and Peter Gotti, along with other prominent mobsters, now in prison, prosecutors have turned to the allegedly corrupt officials who did their bidding for decades. "This is a big case," a well-known mob expert said Friday. "They've got all the gangsters, (and) this is a particularly important follow-up or complement to that."

On the heels of the current criminal case, the government also has filed a civil lawsuit against the ILA seeking to have just about every current executive permanently barred from union activity. Court-appointed monitors would then oversee new union elections.

Roslynn Mauskopf, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said the lawsuit "seeks — once and for all — to end mob domination of this important labor union and put its future back into the hands of the rank-and-file members it was designed to serve."

The mob expert, who agreed to be quoted in this article on the condition that his name not be used, said the outcome of the Daggett-Coffey case may determine how the government will fare in the civil case — often called a "civil RICO" after the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. "Once (the feds) can convict these honchos, it'll go a long way toward establishing their civil case," the expert said. "This'll be like icing on the cake."

Coffey's defense attorney, Gerald McMahon — who in his opening statement called the case a politically-motivated attempt by the Justice Department to take over the union — said essentially the same thing. "Everybody knows that if they get a criminal conviction, it makes the civil RICO a slam dunk," McMahon said.

The core of the government's case is a meeting six years ago at a Miami Beach steakhouse between ILA president John Bowers and Genovese soldier George Barone. Coffey allegedly brought Bowers to the meeting. Bowers later recalled the encounter in a sworn deposition before the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. "You're doing a wonderful job," he said Barone told him. "We hope you stay forever. But if you ever leave, I would like to see Harold Daggett become president."

Bowers had been backing a Texas man not controlled by the Genovese family to be his successor, and Barone was there to let him know that was not a good idea, the government says. When asked by investigators how he responded, Bowers was matter-of-fact: "I am alone, one-on-one. I know of his reputation; I am not going to ask a lot of questions. I am figuring now how the hell to get out of the place."

Barone, 81, who has admitted murdering at least 10 people in his decades as a mobster, became an informant to avoid prison after a 2001 arrest, and is now the star witness for the prosecution. How reliable the jurors found Barone, and several other turncoats who testified in the trial, could be the deciding factor in their verdict.

The case may also rest on how reliable they found Daggett himself, who took the stand in his own defense during the trial's final week and denied that he even knows any mobsters — except, of course, for George Barone, who he said once held a gun to his head when he was trying to move his local out of Manhattan. "There is no mob in my local," Daggett testified.

Daggett, a third-generation dockworker who now earns almost a half-million dollars between his two jobs as the ILA assistant general organizer and president of the North Bergen local, lives in a gated mansion set back from a neighborhood of small-by-comparison three-garage homes on Green Road in Sparta. He is a parishioner at Our Lady of the Lake Roman Catholic Church and has been portrayed in his defense as an upstanding member of the community who fights for the rights of his laborers.

Daggett's lawyer, George Daggett — his cousin and the former Sussex County prosecutor — called the government's case an "anti-union prosecution" in his three-hour closing argument last week. "I'm pleased with the way the case went in," George Daggett said Friday. He added that he was pleased with what he saw as positive reactions, from some jurors, to his impassioned summation.

The case has had its unexpected twists. In the past two months, for instance, the number of defendants has dwindled from four to two. Or, if you will, 2 1/2.

A third ILA executive, Albert Cernadas — who also headed the union local in Port Newark — was named in a superseding indictment earlier this year but pleaded guilty a week before the trial began to a reduced conspiracy charge. Under the plea deal, he agreed to sever all ties with the union and will likely avoid significant prison time. Then, halfway through the trial, another defendant, a reputed Genovese captain named Lawrence Ricci, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Published reports cited investigative sources as saying they believed he had been killed by his fellow gangsters. However, Ricci remains merely "missing" in the eyes of the law, and he is still technically a defendant in the case. The judge in the case has instructed the jury not to draw any "negative inference" from his absence.

Thanks to BRENDAN BERLS

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Will DNA testing clear the "Mafia Cops"?

Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Luchese Crime Family, Edward "Eddie" Lino, Anthony "Gas Pipe" Casso
Friends of Mine: Louis Eppolito and Stephen Carappa

Ex-detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, accused of being hit men for the mob, are seeking to have DNA tests run on a watch found at the scene of one of their alleged gangland murders, sources familiar with the case told Newsday. Legal and law enforcement sources said the defense believes the tests might help to show that Eppolito and Caracappa had nothing to do with the murder and thus cast doubt about other elements of the prosecution's case.

"This might be so important that I think it is better I not say anything," said defense attorney Ed Hayes, who is representing Caracappa.

Among the 10 murders that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have accused the former cops of being involved in is the Nov. 6, 1990, killing of Gambino family captain Edward "Eddie" Lino. The slaying occurred by the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

Lino was believed by investigators to have been one of a group of men involved in an unsuccessful attempt to kill former Luchese crime boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. It was Casso, federal investigators believe, who used Eppolito and Caracappa as alleged mob moles and assassins. Lino was killed after Eppolito and Caracappa followed him from his social club and forced him to pull over as he drove along the parkway, according to the federal charges.

Prosecutors recently turned over numerous pieces of evidence, including the investigative reports about Lino's murder, to defense attorneys. One of the documents indicated that a Pulsar watch was found at the Lino crime scene and that it contained some strands of brown human hair, said a lawyer familiar with the case but who asked not to be identified.

In a letter sent to federal prosecutors Tuesday, Hayes said he wanted to examine the watch and any diagrams, photos and test results related to it. Hayes noted in his letter that only fingerprint tests had been done on the watch and asked that "complete testing" be done. Though the Hayes letter didn't mention DNA tests, sources familiar with the case said defense attorneys believe DNA testing might show the hair strands were not from Caracappa or Eppolito. A law enforcement source, who also asked not to be identified, said it was unclear if the DNA that may be discovered from testing would be definitive about anything related to the case.

Thanks to ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO of Newsday

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Gotti said to order snitches killed.

Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Peter Gotti, Primo Cassarino, Richard Gotti, Genovese Crime Family, Lawrence Ricci

A convicted Gambino soldier testified in a union-corruption trial yesterday that Peter Gotti once warned that if anyone cooperated with the government, he would, "kill them and their families."

Primo Cassarino, who was convicted with Gotti in 2003 for shaking down action-movie star Steven Segal, said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday that he had spoken to the FBI about cooperating with the government during that trial. But when asked why he decided to go to trial with the former Gambino boss he said, "I didn't have no choice. If I didn't go to trial, I'd have been killed by Peter Gotti. Peter Gotti told his brother, Richard, if anybody cooperates, kill them and their families."

When Richard Gotti relayed his brother's warning, he was unaware Cassarino had spoken to the FBI, Cassarino testified under cross-examination in the trial of Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey. The two International Longshoremen's Association members are accused of conspiring with the Genovese crime family to have them installed as union heads.

Another co-defendant, reputed Genovese capo Lawrence Ricci, has been missing since the start of the trial, leading to speculation that he has been the victim of a mob hit. Ricci is accused of steering an ILA contract to a pharmaceutical company with mob ties. When asked why he had decided to be a government witness this time around, Cassarino said he was hoping to have his sentence reduced. Cassarino's conviction was for racketeering and money-laundering after he tried to force Segal to give them a cut of movie profits in a deal brokered by his former producer.

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Where are the real tough wise guys of the past?

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, Lucchese Crime Famly, Arnold "Zeke" Squitieri, Phil "Skinny Phil" Loscalzo

First, Junior Gotti pens a children's book in prison. Then the mob scion shows up at Sunday Mass. Now, federal prosecutors are claiming the Gambinos and the Lucheses - among the most bloodthirsty crime families New York City has ever known - are just a bunch of pansies. What's the Mafia come to?

Consider the trial going on in courtroom 26A of Manhattan Federal Court. There a group of Albanian-led mobsters are accused of crimes committed as they wrested control of Astoria's gambling clubs - and the protection money they generated - from the Luchese family. Federal prosecutors say gang leader Alex Rudaj, 38, had Gottiesque visions of heading a sixth crime family. They claim on one occasion, he and some pals even pushed their way into Rao's, the exclusive East Harlem eatery, demanded John Gotti's old table - and got it.

"The Gambino crime family simply could not stand in the way of the Rudaj organization, and the Rudaj organization took great pride in that," prosecutor Benjamin Gruenstein said. He told a jury that when the Gambinos tried to head off the Albanians in a showdown at a New Jersey gas station, they were sent away cowering. One of Rudaj's henchmen pulled a gun and pointed it at a gas pump, threatening to blow them all away. The leader of the Gambinos, Arnold (Zeke) Squitieri, backed off. After that, the Rudaj organization moved into Astoria, branching out from their base in the Bronx and Westchester, where they got their start forcing their "Joker Poker" machines on bar owners.

Attorneys for Rudaj and his five co-defendants have mocked the prosecution's theory during the opening weeks of an expected three-month trial. Rudaj's lawyer, James Kousouros, says his client was a legitimate businessman, owner of Morris Park Games, which sells foosball games, pool tables and gambling machines to bars and clubs throughout the city. "The Lucheses and the Gambinos are comprised of hundreds of members who shoot and kill anybody that stands before them and takes a nickel from them," Kousouros told jurors. "The reality is that these six gentleman did not displace two of the most powerful crime families in the world."

Among those on trial is Rudaj's alleged chief enforcer, Nikola Dedaj, gang members Ljusa (Louie) Nuculovic, Prenka (Frankie) Ivezaj and Nardino Colotti, a protégé of the late Gambino family soldier Phil (Skinny Phil) Loscalzo. All are charged with racketeering, gambling, extortion and loansharking.

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Feds Fear Syndicate Rebirth

A tidal wave of imprisoned mobsters, including ferocious Mafia bosses champing at the bit to hit the streets, will soon be freed to reclaim the reins of the city's five crime families, The NY Post has learned.

In an extraordinary interagency memo, the FBI has been warned by the Bureau of Prisons to brace for the release of 80 goodfellas and their close associates, whose sentences behind bars will expire before January 2007, according law-enforcement sources. The list of hardened hoods in the prisons bureau survey reads like a Who's Who of Mafioso whose exploits were splashed across the front pages during the past two decades:


* Venero "Bennie Eggs" Mangano, 84, legendary underboss to Vincent "Chin" Gigante of the Genovese crime family, is scheduled for release on Nov. 2, 2006, after serving 15 years for his role in rigging window-installation contracts at city projects in the infamous "Windows Case."

* Sal Avellino, 69, the Luchese crime family underboss and one-time chauffeur for family godfather Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo, is slated to be released Oct. 10, 2006, after serving 11 years in prison for his role in various mob activities, including the murders of two waste carters who were cooperating with the feds.

* Joe "Joe the German" Watts, 63, former chauffeur and gunslinger for John Gotti, the late Gambino boss, will be freed May 5, after serving 11 years for convictions for murder conspiracy and for an elaborate money-laundering scheme.

* Steve "Stevie Wonder" Crea, 58, a powerful Luchese underboss, is expected to be free Aug. 24 after serving three years for fixing prices on three Manhattan construction projects and extorting money from a Long Island construction company.

* Andrew "Andy Mush" Russo, 71, the capo cousin of Colombo crime family godfather Carmine "The Snake" Persico, who was convicted as the muscle over private carters and is coming out June 6 after serving nine years for racketeering.

* Salvatore "Sammy Meatballs" Aparo, 75, a powerful Genovese capo, will be free May 25 after serving time for a 1991 labor-racketeering conviction in a case in which another mobster was caught on tape bragging, "Hurting people. That's what this is about."

* Charles Carneglia, 59, a trusted Gambino power whose brother, John, was a reputed hit man in the famed slaying of boss Paul "Big Paul" Castellano, will be free May 1 after serving five years for extortion.

* Richard G. Gotti, 37, nephew of the late John Gotti, and son of the Dapper Don's brother, Richard V. Gotti, will be free March 3 after serving three years in the same racketeering case that convicted his father and his uncle, Peter.


Experts say the survey, conducted in July, serves as additional proof that speculation about the demise of the Mafia is vastly premature — despite high-profile defections of mob bosses such as Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano, a succession of celebrated convictions and the latest twist involving a mob lawyer entering the witness-protection program, as The Post reported last week. "You only hear about the all the guys who flipped, but if you ever took a look at the list of guys who went into prison and how many rolled over, it is not even close," one longtime mob hunter observed.

In fact, there are about 1,100 members of organized crime, with each wiseguy connected to 10 associates, making for a separate rogues' gallery of about 11,000 businessmen, labor officials and others linked to the mob, the sources said.

In recent years, law-enforcement has broken the mob's stranglehold on certain unions and construction industries, but "the nucleus is still there" in those businesses as well as in the Mafia's bread-and-butter pursuit: gambling. "There's too much money to be made and always people willing to take the shot," one source said, adding that the "same is true of the leadership."

For example, the Gambino power vacuum created by the death of John Gotti and the subsequent imprisonment of brother Peter has been quickly filled by the lower-profiled Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo and his brother, Joseph "JoJo."

"For each rat or guy we put in prison, there are 20 others willing to take their place," a mob watcher said. "And none of these guys are coming out to shine shoes."

A prisons bureau spokesperson declined to explain what prompted the mob-inmate survey, but sources say the analysis was handed over to FBI brass in Washington and was being used to update the inmates' connections to the mob and assess "their potential impact" on La Cosa Nostra when they get out.

James Margolin, the FBI spokesman in New York, said the advisory "is further indication of what we have always maintained, that there remains plenty of work to be done in fighting organized crime, and that is why it continues to be a priority for this office."

And as chilling as the recent survey is, it does not list hoods such as Oreste "Ernie Boy" Abbamonte, a major convicted heroin dealer and a member of both the Bonanno and Luchese families, who came out of prison in February.

It also does not mention a future wave of releases expected after 2007 including gangsters such as Liborio "Barney" Bellomo, 48, the former Genovese street boss who is due out in August 2008.

Thanks to Murray Weiss

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Gotti Jury is Hung, Judge Declares Mistrial

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family

Jurors said they could not agree on verdicts against 41-year-old John A "Junior" Gotti, son of the late head of the powerful Gambino crime family.

Gotti, who has stayed in prison since serving out a sentence for extortion, hugged his lawyers after the decision. The jury did agree on one count - acquitting Gotti of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

US District Judge Shira Scheindlin said she is likely to agree to a request to allow bail for Gotti. "It's my view that the time has come," Ms Scheindlin said in the courtroom. Gotti has already served a five-year sentence on other racketeering charges.

The new charges were brought against him last year before he was due to be released.
One of those who testified against Gotti was Curtis Sliwa, a former radio host and founder of the anti-crime citizens group, the Guardian Angels.

Mr Sliwa says that Gotti ordered him to be attacked in retaliation for comments made about his father on the radio programme. "It's a hung jury, it's a mistrial, it's round two for me, it doesn't mean John 'Junior' Gotti is innocent," Mr Sliwa said. Prosecutors have said they will seek a retrial.

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Junior Gotti's Last Jab

A federal jury is set to begin deliberating the fate of John "Junior" Gotti after hearing a last word from his lawyer who argued yesterday that the once-powerful mob leader hung up his gangster hat so long ago he can't be convicted. Defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman claimed Gotti renounced the mob and defied his father when he pleaded guilty to unrelated racketeering charges in April 1999 and then harkened back to the secretly taped words of the late John "Dapper Don" Gotti.

"We've heard from John's father that Gottis don't plead guilty. They fight, fight, fight," Lichtman said.

Facing a string of charges that span the 1990s including the 1992 kidnap-shooting of radio host Curtis Sliwa, Gotti has hung his hopes on convincing jurors he exited the mob prior to the five-year statute of limitations. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael McGovern told jurors they should disregard Gotti's claims that he's a changed man.

"The evidence in this case has shown nothing could be further from the truth," he argued. "As recently as 2002, he was continuing to stuff his pockets."

Prosecutors normally get the final word at trial, but Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin gave Lichtman the rare chance to respond in light of Gotti's unusual defense, which requires him to actively prove he renounced the Mafia.

Gotti, 41, is facing up to 30 years behind bars if convicted. He listened sullenly from the defense table and rarely lifted his gaze as his lawyer and the prosecutor sparred and interrupted each other with constant objections. Lichtman has claimed the 1999 plea and Gotti's subsequent six years in prison show "John ended his criminal dealing with the mob and should be acquitted of these charges." The lawyer noted that the only evidence linking Gotti to mob business in recent years came from the testimony of star witness Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo a former Gambino capo and an admitted killer and liar.

"There are no tapes, there are no letters, there are no cards, there are no bugs," Lichtman said. There were also no visits from any high-ranking members of the Gambino
crime family, other than Gotti's uncle Richard.

In the prosecution team's attempt to show Gotti's ongoing involvement in the mob, they have accused him of three criminal acts between 1999 and 2002. These include allegations that he asked DiLeonardo to return some machine guns and to repay an old $50,000 loan-sharking debt. Gotti also allegedly asked for a meeting with DiLeonardo's lawyer to convince his pal to plead guilty in an unrelated case, but DiLeonardo refused to arrange it.

Thanks to Kati Cornell Smith

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Prosecution presents closing argument in Junior Gotti racketeering trial

New York was buzzing about Gambino crime boss John Gotti in the spring of 1992, and radio host Curtis Sliwa didn't hide his disdain for the ''Dapper Don.'' Calling the boss ''America's No. 1 drug dealer,'' Sliwa infuriated the late mobster's son and protege, John A. ''Junior'' Gotti, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday as the younger Gotti's racketeering trial drew to a close.

Junior Gotti ''didn't respond like an ordinary citizen,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in his closing argument. ''Instead of engaging in public debate, Gotti responded to Sliwa's words in the Gambino family native language: violence.''The younger Gotti sent thugs to beat Sliwa with baseball bats, Kim said. But Sliwa didn't shut up, so two mobsters were sent to pick him up in a stolen cab, Kim said. As Sliwa struggled to escape, a hitman opened fire, leaving the Guardian Angels founder weak and bleeding in the back seat, Kim said. Sliwa escaped by throwing himself out the cab window but other Gambino family rivals were not as lucky, Kim said.

Defense attorneys claim Gotti, 41, had nothing to do with Sliwa's shooting and other attacks and quit the mob after a 1999 conviction. But Kim called that argument ''simply nonsense,'' saying Gotti was ''a man who used his name to get to the top of this criminal enterprise ... a man who used his position in the family to line his pockets with millions of dollars in illegal money.''

Gotti met with gangsters and plotted crimes after his purported renunciation of the mob, Kim said. Gotti's alleged role in the Sliwa attack is part of charges that could send him to prison for 30 years. Gotti's attorney was to begin his summation today.

Thanks to Michael Weissenstein.

John "Junior" Gotti ran the Gambino crime family like it was his own "government" and thought nothing of using violence to settle scores even against the media, prosecutors charged yesterday. "He believed he was special, for after all he had become the street boss of his own government . . . the Gambino organized-crime family," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in closing statements in Manhattan federal court. "Instead of engaging in public debate, Gotti responded in the Gambino crime family's native language: violence," Kim said.

Gotti is facing up to 30 years behind bars if convicted of racketeering charges, most notably for allegedly orchestrating the 1992 kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa in a bid to silence him. At the time, Sliwa was on a crusade against Gotti's father, John "Dapper Don" Gotti, and had branded him "America's No. 1 drug dealer."

"John Gotti Jr. did not like what Curtis Sliwa was saying one bit. He did not like that Curtis Sliwa called his father a gangster, a drug dealer," Kim told the jury. "Like he did so many times, he sent his underlings to do his dirty work for him," the prosecutor said, and recounted Gotti's allegedly chilling order to kidnap Sliwa and put him in the hospital.

"I want it to be personal. I want him to know we had our hands on him and we could do this any time. He's getting personal. I want to get personal," Kim said, quoting Gotti. Sliwa was picked up in a stolen cab as planned, but the plot went awry when the radio host was shot twice by Gotti's co-defendant Michael Yannotti, according to prosecutors.

"He would be dead if he didn't somehow leap out the window of a speeding cab," Kim said of Sliwa, who described his ordeal from the witness stand in the month-long trial. Gotti also is accused of raking in a fortune through securities fraud, extortion of the construction industry and loan-sharking. Gotti's defense will present its closing arguments today.

Thanks to Kati Cornell Smith

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Turncoat details Gotti's alleged crimes on witness stand

The seeds for betrayal were sown in a secret induction ceremony on Christmas Eve 1988, when close friends John A. "Junior" Gotti and Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo swore to uphold the mob's code of silence.

Gotti's infamous father, the Dapper Don, wasn't there because he "did not want to show he's forcing his family into the life," recalled DiLeonardo. "It was a class act."

He offered that description and others about the inner workings of the Gambino crime family last week in federal court amid the Mafia equivalent of a messy divorce.

DiLeonardo, 50, broke his vow to the Gambinos by pleading guilty in 2003 and agreeing to testify against the younger Gotti at a racketeering trial. During four days on the witness stand, the admitted killer and government's star witness told jurors about Gotti's alleged crimes -- including a botched kidnapping of radio show host Curtis Sliwa -- and about his torment over becoming a turncoat. "John was very, very good to me," DiLeonardo said in one of several odes to the family scion. "I love John."

By his own account, DiLeonardo was to the 41-year-old Gotti what the most notorious Gambino cooperator, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, had been to Gotti's father: his confidant, his enforcer and, possibly, his undoing. The elder Gotti died in prison in 2002 after Gravano's testimony helped put him away a decade earlier.

The grandson of a gangster, DiLeonardo testified that he committed three murders and "extorted everybody I could" while rising through the Gambino ranks. Not all his lessons were learned on the street: He said he twice read "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli.

DiLeonardo said he eventually became a captain charged with collecting kickbacks from the construction industry, with millions of dollars going to Gotti. As a member of a council that assumed control of the family after his father was jailed in 1992, Gotti "had it coming," but was quick to share the wealth, DiLeonardo said. "His gifts were greater than my gifts," he said. "I couldn't keep up with him."

DiLeonardo made enough money himself to build a multimillion-dollar home that featured a fence crowned with gargoyles "to keep away evil," he said. The income also helped support children he had both with his wife and girlfriend -- not an unusual burden, he said, given the "social structure" of the mob. "We don't really socialize with our wives," he explained. "When we go out and commiserate, we don't take our wives to mix among gangsters and killers -- we take our girls. ... You're an oddball if you didn't do it."

DiLeonardo testified that Sliwa was targeted in June 1992 after Gotti grew tired of hearing the rant radio personality and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group bash his father on the air. "You guys are going to have to do a piece of work for the family," DiLeonardo quoted Gotti as saying at a meeting with his crew.

The witness said Gotti ordered a "severe hospital beating." Instead Sliwa was shot during a struggle in a stolen cab; he survived, and testified last week against Gotti.

With Gotti in prison on a 1999 racketeering conviction, DiLeonardo was arrested and jailed in 2002. He was soon shocked to learn the Gambinos cut off his income and stripped him of his rank as captain. "They made me a nonentity ... and, above all, broke my heart," he said.

He eventually agreed to cooperate. But he testified that once he pleaded guilty and was released into the witness protection program, he became so distraught by the thought of betraying his "brother John" that he tried to kill himself by overdosing on sleeping pills. "John and I had a special bond in this life, and I always said I'd have undying loyalty to that man," he said. "I love that guy."

DiLeonardo emerged as a key witness last year in a case charging Gotti's uncle with being the acting boss of the Gambinos and with ordering a failed hit on Gravano; the uncle was convicted in 2004 and sentenced last month to 25 years in prison.

While awaiting Gotti's trial, DiLeonardo said, he anxiously scanned newspaper and Web sites for news about his old friend and partner in organized crime. "I has hoping John Jr. may have flipped and I wouldn't have to take the stand," he said. "I was rooting for him to flip."

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Curtis Sliwa Describes Nightmare Cab Ride #Gotti #GuardianAngels

A radio host known for mouthing off against the Mafia testified Monday about how a 1992 cab ride became a botched kidnapping that prosecutors say was ordered by John A. "Junior" Gotti.

Taking the witness stand at Gotti's conspiracy trial in federal court in Manhattan, Curtis Sliwa told jurors that after hailing the cab, a masked gunman hiding in the front passenger seat "popped up like a jack-in-the-box," swore at him and began shooting. "I'm saying to myself, 'This has got to be a nightmare,"' Sliwa testified.

Wounded in the stomach and bleeding profusely, Sliwa discovered the stolen cab had been rigged so he couldn't open the back doors. He said he saved himself by throwing himself into the front seat and out the passenger window as the cab sped down the street.

He testified that he calculated, "I'll take my chances and become a human speed bump, but I have to get out of this cab."

Prosecutors allege Sliwa was targeted after angering the Gambino crime family with his on-air tirades against late mob boss John Gotti, who had been sentenced to life in prison for a racketeering conviction.

Sliwa recalled telling his listeners that the mob was fueling the city's violent drug trade, and labeled the elder Gotti "America's No. 1 drug dealer." After he was jumped and beaten with baseball bats in an earlier attack, he responded by turning up his anti-Gambino rhetoric.

Testifying last week as part of plea deal, the driver of the cab, Joseph "Little Joey" D'Angelo, quoted the younger Gotti as saying of Sliwa, "He's getting personal. I want us to get personal."

Gotti, 41, whose father died in prison in 2002, is accused of a conspiracy to silence Sliwa as part of racketeering charges that could keep him in prison for up to 30 years. He has said he had nothing to do with the attack.

During cross examination, Gotti's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, sought to portray Sliwa as a con man who repeatedly lied to police and the media in the 1970s and 1980s to promote his Guardian Angels crime-fighting group. The witness conceded that he once concocted a story about personally fighting off a would-be rapist he described as a "6-foot-6 gorilla."

Sliwa also admitted that he made headlines by falsely claiming that police, annoyed by the Guardian Angels, had kidnapped and threatened him. He later told reporters he wasn't surprised his credibility came under attack.

"Frankly, some of the things I did in the past, I deserved that line of questioning," Sliwa said.

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Trial pits 'Angel' Curtis Sliwa against son of 'Dapper Don', Junior Gotti

Curtis Sliwa

For years, radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa routinely denigrated late mob boss John Gotti and his cohorts as murderers, drug dealers, degenerates. His tone was so strident, prosecutors say, that Gotti's son ordered an attack on the motormouthed founder of the Guardian Angels.

Make it personal, the younger Gotti allegedly told his gunsels.

Thirteen years after Sliwa took two bullets in a botched hit, he will finally get face-to-face with John "Junior" Gotti in a courtroom. Sliwa, who's rarely at a loss for words, was expected to testify Monday in Gotti's federal racketeering trial. "I've been waiting 13 years for justice," Sliwa said before the trial started last month. The courtroom showdown was expected to provide the trial's most drama: the head Angel testifying against the ex-head of the Gambino crime family.

Both native New Yorkers, they share an Italian heritage and a penchant for making headlines -- but that's about all they have in common. There's no love lost between the son of the infamous "Dapper Don" and the son of a merchant seaman.

It was Sliwa's on-air slagging of the elder Gotti that allegedly prompted an angry Junior to order the June 19, 1992, attack.

Prosecution witness Joseph "Little Joey" D'Angelo, a mob turncoat, testified that Gotti went as far as taking him on a tour of Sliwa's Manhattan neighborhood to pick out a spot where the attack should occur.

D'Angelo said that Gotti's directions were very specific: "He's getting personal. I want us to get personal." He said Gotti specifically mentioned Sliwa's cracks about his father, who was serving a life term on a racketeering charge.

Gotti allegedly only wanted Sliwa to take a beating when two mobsters inside a stolen cab picked up the radio show host. But the process was botched and mobster Michael "Mikey Y" Yannotti wound up shooting him, said prosecution witness D'Angelo. Yanotti then tossed the wounded Guardian Angel out the cab window.

Gotti has denied any involvement in the Sliwa shooting. D'Angelo testified that Gotti paid him $5,000 for the job.

Gotti, whose father died in prison in 2002, is accused of a conspiracy to kidnap Sliwa as part of racketeering charges that could jail him for 30 years.

While the attack was intended to shut up Sliwa, it's had the exact opposite effect. Sliwa, who co-hosts a morning radio show with liberal lawyer Ron Kuby, only increased his vitriol toward Gotti and the Gambino family after the shooting.

Long before Junior's indictment, Sliwa was publicly putting the blame on the Gambinos. He did stop talking about the case briefly when Gotti was finally charged with the crime.

Sliwa, quite dramatically, then went into hiding over fears that he would be targeted for retaliation by the Gambino family. He wasn't, and was soon back to his old ways on the radio.

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Lawyer says 'Junior' Gotti has reformed

John A. "Junior" Gotti went on trial on kidnapping, extortion and fraud charges Monday, with a prosecutor saying he ordered the 1992 kidnapping of a radio host to silence him for his verbal attacks on the Gotti family.

As a bespectacled Gotti, 40, sat passively in a dark suit, federal prosecutor Victor Hou accused him of taking over the street leadership of the Gambino crime family during the 1990s after his father, John Gotti, was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2002. "The Gambino crime family is not a family like yours or mine," Hou told the jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

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