Reputed Genovese Crime Family Mobster Among Those Indicted for Running Sports Gambling Ring

Eleven people, including a retired NYPD officer and a reputed Genovese wiseguy, were indicted Wednesday for running a $13 million sports gambling ring.

The group processed bets through a "wire room" in Costa Rica reachable through a Web site or a toll-free number.

One of the defendants, Carmen Cicalese, 77, is a fugitive in Costa Rica.

"These are not victimless crimes," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. "When it comes to illegal gambling in Queens County, all bets are off."

The ring took action on baseball, basketball, hockey, and professional and college football. Bets ranged from $200 to $4,000.

Joseph Sofia, 63, who was an NYPD detective hunting career criminals until retiring on disability in 1989, allegedly collected the cash and gave gamblers access codes.

He and the other defendants face up to 25 years in prison if convicted on enterprise corruption and other charges.

The group's bookmakers were identified by prosecutors as James Rossi, 49, an alleged Genovese associate, and Michael Mildenberger, 71.

Cops seized nearly $400,000 in cash in Long Island and North Carolina, four vehicles and thousands of pages of gambling records from the group.

"We haven't had a chance to examine any of the evidence," said lawyer Joseph Sorrentino, who represented Rossi and Mildenberger at their arraignment. "They can make any allegation they want, but the question is can they prove it?"

Thanks to Brendan Brosh

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Fatal Wall from St. Valentine's Day Massacre Acquired by Las Vegas Mob Museum

Las Vegas' Mob Museum exhibits will include the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall where seven people were gunned down by rival Chicago gangsters on Feb. 14, 1929.

Mayor Oscar Goodman announced the acquisition this morning at an event marking the beginning of renovations to the historic federal courthouse building in downtown, which will house the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.

On that day 80 years ago, four men dressed as police officers entered a warehouse where members of a gang headed by George "Bugs" Moran were gathered. Moran's gang was fighting with a gang led by Al Capone. The fake police officers lined up the rival gang members and killed them. A coroner's report documented 70 machine gun bullets and two shotgun blasts.

The warehouse stood until 1967, when it was demolished. A Canadian businessman bought the wall and used it as an attraction at a restaurant. After he died in 2004, his heirs settled on the Mob Museum as a home for the wall.

The museum is expected to open in early 2011.

"It's going to be a fun place, and it's going to bring a lot of people downtown," Goodman said.

Thanks to Alan Choate

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Is the Food at Mob Eateries Overrated?

SO, Fat Tony misses Ba monte's mussels, Rao's chicken, and "great pasta" at Parkside and Don Peppe! It just shows you how out to lunch the mob is these days.

A joke among Italian-Americans secure enough to laugh off stupid stereotypes is to ask not whether a good Italian restaurant is northern or southern, but rather: "Gambino or Genovese?" (Sorry, Bonannos, Colombos and Lucheses.)

The myth that eateries owned or frequented by the Mafia have great food goes back many generations. Maybe "the Luna Azure up in The Bronx" really did have "the finest" veal in town, as Mario Puzo wrote in "The Godfather." But the Corleones never existed. And today's made men are mostly too drugged or stunad to be able to taste the difference between veal and Velveeta.

If Fat Tony wants real Italian food, he doesn't have to go back to the old country. It's kicking butt all over town as never before.

If Marea's brawny fusili with baby octopus, bone marrow and tomatoes doesn't give Tony a new perspective, neither will a set of brass knuckles.

The cooking at supposedly mobbed-up, old-time red-sauce restaurants was always overrated. Il Mulino costs a bundle, but it whips the meatballs off Tony's faves. On a good night, chicken scarpariello at cheap, mass-market Carmine's on upper Broadway could give Rao's lemon chicken a run for its money in a blind tasting.

Tony doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to go for prissy pasta primavera -- which is to his credit. But he'd flip for awesomely rich dishes coming out of the kitchens of Marea, Babbo, Il Gattopardo, Esca, Del Posto, Convivio, San Pietro, A Voce, Locanda Verde, Mia Dona, Cellini -- even all-American Union Square Café, where chef Carmen Quagliata's pasta shames most of what they eat in Rome.

The probation poobahs aren't keeping Tony away from New York's exploding (bad word!) super-pizza scene, either -- from the killer (!) $5 slice, hand-made by owner Domenico DeMarco, at Di Fara on Avenue J in Midwood to the luxuriously crusted 12-inchers at Keste on Bleecker Street, where Neapolitan "artisans" preside over the dough.

Thanks to Steve Cuozzo

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