The feds secretly recorded Gambino hit man Charles Carneglia acknowledging he fatally stabbed a mob associate outside a Queens diner, it was learned Monday.
Carneglia fessed up to the murder in a 1999 jailhouse visit with Gambino capo Gene Gotti, a transcript shows.
Documents filed in Brooklyn Federal Court say a listening bug was planted in the visiting room at the federal prison in Pennsylvania where Gotti was serving a 50-year sentence for heroin trafficking.
The victim, Michael Cotillo, was the nephew of a Gambino gangster whose crew was often at odds in the 1970s with John Gotti's faction, of which Carneglia was a member.
"Well, you stabbed somebody, Charles. You stabbed one of their guys," Gene Gotti said on the transcript.
Carneglia replied: "I know that. I know."
"And that's why they wanted to get you," Gene Gotti reminded him.
Gene Gotti was referring to revenge sought by Cotillo's friends and relatives after the Nov. 6, 1977, killing during a melee outside the Blue Fountain Diner on Cross Bay Blvd. in Howard Beach.
There were multiple sitdowns within the crime family to settle the beef, turncoat witness Anthony Ruggiano testified Monday at Carneglia's racketeering trial.
"They [Cotillo's faction] were looking to kill Charlie," Ruggiano said. "I said whatever you do, do it right because Charlie's no joke."
Despite the passage of 22 years, Carneglia still expressed concern on the tape that permission to whack him for Cotillo's murder had been granted. Gotti pointed out the threat was "squashed."
Carneglia is charged with killing five people, including Cotillo. Prosecutors plan to play the tape for the jury today.
Thanks to John Marzulli
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
History Repeats Itself, After One CPA Gets Capone, Another CPA Puts the Mafia Cops Away
Accountant Stephen Corso was in deep trouble. His clients, including longtime friends, told federal authorities in 2002 t hat he had stolen more than $5 million. Then the Ridgefield man who loved to gamble took the biggest risk of his life: He decided to become an FBI informant in Las Vegas.
Corso's fateful decision came as federal agents were struggling to build a case against two former New York City police detectives long suspected of collaborating with the mob — and even of killing for the mob — in one of the worst cases of police corruption in the city's history.
After a secret meeting with an FBI agent, Corso was fitted with a wire and went to work recording conversations with suspected mobsters visiting Las Vegas from around the country.
He had no backup as he secretly recorded the conversations, and once was threatened with execution if he turned out to be an informant, authorities said.
His clandestine recordings eventually filled more than 900 tapes.
"We came across anything and everything," said FBI agent Kevin Sheehan.
Among the people Corso met in his undercover work was Louis Eppolito, one of the detectives suspected of carrying out mob hits.
"It was divine intervention," Robert Henoch, a former New York prosecutor who handled the case, said at Corso's sentencing Tuesday when he received a year in prison. Or maybe it was dumb luck, he added.
Either way, Corso's recordings began to fill in the holes in the case against Eppolito and fellow former detective Stephen Caracappa. Eppolito, the son of a mobster, was living in Las Vegas while trying to peddle screenplays.
Eppolito and Caracappa were accused of participating in eight mob-related killings between 1986 and 1990 while working for the Luchese crime family. At one point in Corso's recordings, Eppolito bragged about dunking someone's head in acid and threatened to decapitate another person, Henoch said.
A New York jury found the detectives guilty in 2006, but a judge dismissed their racketeering case after determining the statute of limitations had passed on the slayings. A federal appeals court reinstated the verdict last year after prosecutors argued that the murders were part of a conspiracy that lasted through a drug deal in 2005 with Corso.
"There never would have been justice without Mr. Corso's cooperation," Henoch said.
Corso's intelligence also led to other prosecutions and saved investigators millions of dollars, authorities said.
Corso, who faced the possibility of more than seven years in prison but won the reduced sentence for his extraordinary cooperation, is scheduled to surrender May 6. He also has been ordered to pay restitution to the clients from whom he stole money.
Susan Patrick, whose family lost more than $800,000 to Corso, said he was a family friend before the thefts.
"This started a six-year nightmare," she said Tuesday. "We will never be whole for our losses. I don't believe Mr. Corso is at all sorry."
Corso, who apologized to the victims and his family, said at the time that he ripped off millions from his clients to finance a life of "girlfriends, jewelry and going out." Prosecutors say he also had significant gambling losses while living a second life in Las Vegas.
Corso told the judge his parents were first generation Italian immigrants who struggled so that he could have a better life and helped pay for his education at New York University. They hated the mob, he said. "And I threw it all away," Corso said. "I simply lost the way I was raised, how I was raised, but I know for the last six years I functioned and there was never a moment, never a second, that I ever considered doing anything wrong."
Authorities said they offered to put Corso in a witness protection program, but he refused because he would not be able to see his wife and three children.
They say Corso remains in danger because of his cooperation with them. "Mr. Corso will live the rest of his life with a target on his back," said his attorney, J. Bruce Maffeo.
Thanks to John Christoffersen
Corso's fateful decision came as federal agents were struggling to build a case against two former New York City police detectives long suspected of collaborating with the mob — and even of killing for the mob — in one of the worst cases of police corruption in the city's history.
After a secret meeting with an FBI agent, Corso was fitted with a wire and went to work recording conversations with suspected mobsters visiting Las Vegas from around the country.
He had no backup as he secretly recorded the conversations, and once was threatened with execution if he turned out to be an informant, authorities said.
His clandestine recordings eventually filled more than 900 tapes.
"We came across anything and everything," said FBI agent Kevin Sheehan.
Among the people Corso met in his undercover work was Louis Eppolito, one of the detectives suspected of carrying out mob hits.
"It was divine intervention," Robert Henoch, a former New York prosecutor who handled the case, said at Corso's sentencing Tuesday when he received a year in prison. Or maybe it was dumb luck, he added.
Either way, Corso's recordings began to fill in the holes in the case against Eppolito and fellow former detective Stephen Caracappa. Eppolito, the son of a mobster, was living in Las Vegas while trying to peddle screenplays.
Eppolito and Caracappa were accused of participating in eight mob-related killings between 1986 and 1990 while working for the Luchese crime family. At one point in Corso's recordings, Eppolito bragged about dunking someone's head in acid and threatened to decapitate another person, Henoch said.
A New York jury found the detectives guilty in 2006, but a judge dismissed their racketeering case after determining the statute of limitations had passed on the slayings. A federal appeals court reinstated the verdict last year after prosecutors argued that the murders were part of a conspiracy that lasted through a drug deal in 2005 with Corso.
"There never would have been justice without Mr. Corso's cooperation," Henoch said.
Corso's intelligence also led to other prosecutions and saved investigators millions of dollars, authorities said.
Corso, who faced the possibility of more than seven years in prison but won the reduced sentence for his extraordinary cooperation, is scheduled to surrender May 6. He also has been ordered to pay restitution to the clients from whom he stole money.
Susan Patrick, whose family lost more than $800,000 to Corso, said he was a family friend before the thefts.
"This started a six-year nightmare," she said Tuesday. "We will never be whole for our losses. I don't believe Mr. Corso is at all sorry."
Corso, who apologized to the victims and his family, said at the time that he ripped off millions from his clients to finance a life of "girlfriends, jewelry and going out." Prosecutors say he also had significant gambling losses while living a second life in Las Vegas.
Corso told the judge his parents were first generation Italian immigrants who struggled so that he could have a better life and helped pay for his education at New York University. They hated the mob, he said. "And I threw it all away," Corso said. "I simply lost the way I was raised, how I was raised, but I know for the last six years I functioned and there was never a moment, never a second, that I ever considered doing anything wrong."
Authorities said they offered to put Corso in a witness protection program, but he refused because he would not be able to see his wife and three children.
They say Corso remains in danger because of his cooperation with them. "Mr. Corso will live the rest of his life with a target on his back," said his attorney, J. Bruce Maffeo.
Thanks to John Christoffersen
Chicago Bulls Assistant Coach, Bob Ociepka, Authors "Minestrone for the Mobster's Soul: Life Lessons from the Movie Mafia"
When Chicago Bulls assistant coach Bob Ociepka says "nice shot" in his free time, you can bet he's not talking about basketball.
Ociepka
, who lives in Arlington Heights, loves mob movies. Loves them. He's studied them all, from the James Cagney flicks of the 1930s all the way up to contemporary films like "American Gangster."
The crime and violence inherent in such films is part of the fascination, of course, but Ociepka said he's also attracted to the actually quite-traditional values that the characters espouse when they're not breaking the law: respect, loyalty, responsibility, friendship.
"It occurred to me that there really are some important lessons in those movies," Ociepka said during a phone interview shortly before a Bulls-Rockets game in Houston. "And that's when I thought of putting those lessons together in a book."
The result is "Minestrone for the Mobster's Soul: Life Lessons from the Movie Mafia," a book Ociepka co-wrote and self-published with his cousin, Bruno Ociepka, also a mob-movie devotee.
The pair's fascination with Hollywood's treatment of organized crime began in their youth, when they lived on Chicago's West Side, an area that used to be home to a connected guy or two.
"We didn't have to look far to see some of that stuff," Bob Ociepka said with a laugh. "It was all around."
The book includes hundreds of mob-movie quotes and lists of the mob films that the authors would like to have "made" and others they believe should get whacked. ("The Godfather" is a favorite, but "Black Caesar" gets low marks.)
The heart of the book, though, is a fictionalized account of life on Chicago's West Side in the '50s and '60s. These accounts, narrated by the Ociepkas' alter-egos Bobby Madura and Joey DiBruno, hum with Chicago references and street slang. You'll read about 16-inch Clinchers, stern Catholic school nuns and the danger involved in running afoul of the neighborhood precinct captain.
"It was a professional writer in California who suggested that we include the Chicago stories along with the movie stuff," Bob Ociepka said. "We changed some details in the stories so they could fit with the lessons we were talking about, but there's still a lot of truth in them."
Ociepka, a graduate of Providence-St. Mel High School in Chicago, made his name as a local high school basketball coach before moving to the NBA in the late 1980s. He joined the Bulls' staff last year.
Ociepka said he's been handing out copies of the book to his players, many of whom share his interest in mob flicks. He recently autographed a copy for Ben Gordon, the Bulls' hot-shooting guard.
"I'm glad that a lot of the players like the movies, but they tend to focus on the recent ones," Ociepka said. "'Scarface' (the 1983 Brian DePalma version) is a big favorite. But it kills me that some of them have never seen 'The Godfather.'"
Writing "Minestrone" took about seven years, from conception to completion. Ociepka said he loved the experience, but he's not sure if he has another book inside him. "I might have told all my good stories in this one," he said.
Thanks to Matt Arado
Ociepka
, who lives in Arlington Heights, loves mob movies. Loves them. He's studied them all, from the James Cagney flicks of the 1930s all the way up to contemporary films like "American Gangster."The crime and violence inherent in such films is part of the fascination, of course, but Ociepka said he's also attracted to the actually quite-traditional values that the characters espouse when they're not breaking the law: respect, loyalty, responsibility, friendship.
"It occurred to me that there really are some important lessons in those movies," Ociepka said during a phone interview shortly before a Bulls-Rockets game in Houston. "And that's when I thought of putting those lessons together in a book."
The result is "Minestrone for the Mobster's Soul: Life Lessons from the Movie Mafia," a book Ociepka co-wrote and self-published with his cousin, Bruno Ociepka, also a mob-movie devotee.
The pair's fascination with Hollywood's treatment of organized crime began in their youth, when they lived on Chicago's West Side, an area that used to be home to a connected guy or two.
"We didn't have to look far to see some of that stuff," Bob Ociepka said with a laugh. "It was all around."
The book includes hundreds of mob-movie quotes and lists of the mob films that the authors would like to have "made" and others they believe should get whacked. ("The Godfather" is a favorite, but "Black Caesar" gets low marks.)
The heart of the book, though, is a fictionalized account of life on Chicago's West Side in the '50s and '60s. These accounts, narrated by the Ociepkas' alter-egos Bobby Madura and Joey DiBruno, hum with Chicago references and street slang. You'll read about 16-inch Clinchers, stern Catholic school nuns and the danger involved in running afoul of the neighborhood precinct captain.
"It was a professional writer in California who suggested that we include the Chicago stories along with the movie stuff," Bob Ociepka said. "We changed some details in the stories so they could fit with the lessons we were talking about, but there's still a lot of truth in them."
Ociepka, a graduate of Providence-St. Mel High School in Chicago, made his name as a local high school basketball coach before moving to the NBA in the late 1980s. He joined the Bulls' staff last year.
Ociepka said he's been handing out copies of the book to his players, many of whom share his interest in mob flicks. He recently autographed a copy for Ben Gordon, the Bulls' hot-shooting guard.
"I'm glad that a lot of the players like the movies, but they tend to focus on the recent ones," Ociepka said. "'Scarface' (the 1983 Brian DePalma version) is a big favorite. But it kills me that some of them have never seen 'The Godfather.'"
Writing "Minestrone" took about seven years, from conception to completion. Ociepka said he loved the experience, but he's not sure if he has another book inside him. "I might have told all my good stories in this one," he said.
Thanks to Matt Arado
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