The Chicago Syndicate
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Saturday, June 07, 2008

Surrender of "Little Nicky" Corozzo Featured on AMW

Nick Corozzo: “Little Nicky” Corozzo was arguably the Gambino crime family's most powerful chieftain -- and perhaps its craftiest. When he disappeared from double murder charges in Feb. 2008, AMW Surrender of 'Little Nicky' Corozzo Featured on AMWwent on the hunt. Only a week and a half after Corozzo aired nationwide, the mobster folded under the pressure and turned himself in.

Ernest Avery: The Importance Of "Fleeing Ernest": Cops say local thug Ernest Avery was one of three bank robbers whose dreams of great fortune ended in misfortune and blunder during a January 2003 bank heist. Avery's two suspected accomplices were captured, but police say Avery -- the botched bank job's ringleader -- fled, and is still roaming free.

Fred Wert: Joann Antone thought she had found true love in an unlikely place: working at a traveling carnival. But, she says, the romance soon turned into abuse. Police say Joann's boyfriend, Fred Wert, took his anger to a whole new level, leaving a man dead and a child without a father.

Fethi Jelassi: For eight years, the FBI Field Office in Cleveland has searched desperately for fugitive Fethi Jelassi. With all his global contacts, they wonder if he is even in the United States .

Paulo Lopez: On the street they call him "El Diablo," or the devil, and police say his list of offenses supports the nickname. Armed robbery and carjackings are just some of the crimes he's accused of -- and police say they don't know what he'll do next.

Juan Rodriguez: Police say a peaceful night of drinking on the bay October, 2005 in Sarasota , Fla. turned deadly when a man viciously stabbed his friend. Police have a suspect, but without an address, a phone number or even a known relative, cops are finding it extremely difficult to track down this killer.

Greg Adrian: Cops in the City Of Angels are on the lookout for a father accused of physically and sexually abusing his own 12-year-old daughter. Police tell AMW that on November 8, 2007, Greg Anthony Adrian went on the run after his daughter blew the whistle on his latest string of abuse. Now, Los Angeles detectives are on the lookout for Adrian and hope that AMW viewers can help put this bad dad behind bars.

Jorge Villamizar-Alyala: A 25-year-old mom's skull is bashed in with a two-pound sledgehammer in Florida , and the man she loved may be responsible; she didn't know that he had been convicted of killing his first wife in South America , and he may have killed several other women as well.

N’Gai Goode: In yet another case of greed getting ugly, authorities in Detroit , Mich. are now searching for a man who they say is a stone-cold killer. Cops tell us N'Gai El-Hajj Goode got into an argument with another man and threatened to shoot him over $50: a few minutes later, they say he did just that. Now, they need your help to bring this accused killer to justice.

William Balser: To the outside world, William Balser looked to be a respectable, intelligent, family man who lived with his long-time girlfriend, Robin Lee Robinson, and her two daughters. However, cops say Balser's public image couldn't have been any more of a facade. In 1998, Robinson's two daughters blew the whistle on Balser and their mother, telling authorities about years of sexual abuse at the hands of the supposed father figure. To make matters worse, the two sisters allege that their own mother turned a blind eye to the harrowing incidents which included drug and alcohol fueled parties. Now, cops in Manteca , Calif. are looking for Balser and Robinson and hope that AMW viewers can help bring the decade long search for the pair to an end.

Leanna Warner: Cops in Chisholm , Minn. are not giving up on the search for 5-year-old Leanna Warner. The little girl went missing on June 13, 2003 when she stepped out of her house to go visit a neighbor. Now, cops are looking into people who attended a Chisholm event around the time when Leanna went missing, hoping to find new clues that will help them learn what happened to the little girl.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Nine Mobster Accused and Arrested for Mafia Crimes Nationwide

A reputed acting mob boss and eight other suspected gangsters were arrested Wednesday on federal charges accusing them of coast-to-coast Mafia crimes, ranging from gangland hits in New York to a home invasion by police impersonators in Los Angeles, authorities said.

Among those named in a racketeering indictment were Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli, who authorities said was the acting boss of the Colombo organized crime family.

Three other defendants already behind bars also were charged, including 89-year-old John "Sonny" Franzese, identified as the family's underboss.

Gioeli, wearing a hoodie and basketball shorts after an early morning arrest at his Long Island home, pleaded not guilty to robbery, murder and extortion charges. He was ordered held without bail. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

"He's denied all the allegations," said his attorney, Adam Perlmutter, outside court. The other defendants were also due in court Wednesday.

The takedown -- following a three-month investigation using turncoat mobsters and electronic surveillance -- was part of a "relentless campaign to prosecute and convict the highest echelons of the Colombo family and La Cosa Nostra as a whole," said U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell.

He noted that former Colombo acting boss Alphonse "Allie Boy" Persico and another family member were convicted last year of orchestrating a 1999 murder.

Gioeli was charged in three of four slayings detailed in the indictment, including the 1992 slayings of two men amid a bloody civil war for control of the family. A Colombo captain was accused of participating in the shooting and killing of an armored truck guard, also in 1992, while the victim was delivering money to a cash-checking store in Brooklyn.

The indictment also alleges Gioeli participated in the holdup of a fur shop in February 1991 in which he posed as a customer shopping for a Valentine's Day gift. He and other bandits handcuffed the owner before they "filled garbage bags with fur coats" and fled, court papers said.

In 2006, two other defendants flew to Los Angeles to try to rob a home where they believed there was $1 million in drug money, court papers said. Donning hats and T-shirts emblazoned with "DEA" and carrying a fake search warrant, the men burst into the home and pistol-whipped a woman there, but never found the cash, the papers said.

It was the second high-profile mob case to be made in recent months: In February, prosecutors charged 62 reputed members and associates of the once-powerful Gambino crime family with murders, drug trafficking, robberies, extortion, and other crimes dating back to the 1970s.

Last Thursday, the lone fugitive in the Gambino case, Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo, strolled up to the FBI's office and surrendered on charges he ordered a decades-old gangland hit that took an innocent bystander's life. He was ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty to racketeering, extortion and murder charges

Friday, May 30, 2008

Gambinos Withstanding Feds Efforts to Eliminate The Family

The feds' knockout of the Gambino crime family looks more like a phantom punch.

Reputed boss John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico and reputed underboss Domenico (The Greaseball) Cefalu took a plea deal Wednesday, admitting to a single extortion count, and could end up spending less than two years in prison.

In the last two weeks - and with a June 7 trial date looming - prosecutors dropped their demand that D'Amico plead guilty to racketeering, which carried a more serious penalty, defense lawyer Elizabeth Macedonio said.

D'Amico and Cefalu admitted extorting a $100,000 payment from businessman-turned rat Joseph Vollaro in exchange for permission to sell his Staten Island cement company. Prosecutors did not object when D'Amico said Vollaro would suffer "economic harm" if he didn't pay up, rather than violence.

Despite great fanfare accompanying last February's indictment of 62 Gambinos, there was no new defection of a high-ranking turncoat, and Vollaro was unable to record conversations with D'Amico, Cefalu or reputed consigliere Joseph (JoJo) Corozzo, a government source acknowledged.

Corozzo is scheduled to plead guilty to a new complaint that drops a drug trafficking charge against him. "Plea [deals] are based on lack of evidence and quality of evidence," Macedonio said.

For aging mobsters like D'Amico, 71; Cefalu, 61, and Corozzo, 66, convictions after trial would have resulted in virtual life sentences. None of the 52 defendants cutting deals faces more than three years in prison.

Thanks to John Marzulli

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