It was the mob equivalent of a performance evaluation, and Charles Carneglia wasn't doing well. Gambino crime family captain Gene Gotti, prosecutors say, thought Carneglia's work was sloppy for an assassin.
"You stabbed somebody, Charles," the brother of the notorious Mafia boss said in a secretly recorded conversation in a prison visiting room.
"I know that, I know that. I know," Carneglia said.
Authorities say the conversation was about the fatal stabbing of a rival mobster during a beef outside a bar in Queens in 1977—one of five murders prosecutors will try to pin on Carneglia at a trial set to open Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn.
It's a case rife with gory details of Carneglia's alleged exploits, including claims the body of one victim of his hit team—a neighbor who accidentally ran over John Gotti's 12-year-old son—was dissolved in a vat of acid. The defendant wasn't charged in the neighbor's murder, though a judge has ruled that prosecutors can still tell jurors about the death—without mentioning the acid. There was no immediate response to a message seeking comment from Carneglia's attorney.
Carneglia was one of 62 people arrested last year in what authorities described as one of the largest roundups ever of suspected members and associates of a New York crime family. Since then 60 have pleaded guilty to lesser charges, and one case was dropped.
The jury will hear testimony from several mob turncoats who recently agreed to help investigators tackle unsolved slayings, some decades old.
Prosecutors allege the trail of bodies left behind by Carneglia includes those of a court officer gunned down in 1976 before he was to testify against Carneglia in a gun possession case; a Gambino associate stabbed to death in 1983 during an argument with Carneglia over money; a Gambino soldier killed on orders by John Gotti in 1990 in the parking lot of the World Trade Center; and an armored car security guard shot in the back during a heist in 1990.
Since his arrest, Carneglia has displayed a defiant streak: Prosecutors say when told he was facing charges under RICO—the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—he quipped, "Who's RICO, Edward G. Robinson?" And the Daily News reported that at one court hearing he stared down the daughter of one of the victims, telling her, "Wrong guy."
The 62-year-old defendant once sported a long gray beard and pony tail—a look one prospective juror told the judge made him appear "a bit on the shady side." He since has shaved off the beard and gotten a hair cut.
If convicted, Carneglia faces a possible life prison term.
Thanks to Tom Hays
Saturday, January 31, 2009
First Conviction from "Operation Delco Nostra" Organized Crime Investigation
State prosecutors have scored their first conviction stemming from the "Operation Delco Nostra" organized-crime investigation that led to 17 arrests last summer and exposed an alleged plot to attack Philadelphia mobster Martin "Marty" Angelina.
Daniel Diedrich, a former supervisor in the Delaware County Domestic Relations Department, pleaded guilty yesterday in Media to one count of bookmaking. He was sentenced to two years' probation and fined $1,000.
Diedrich, 34, of Clifton Heights, was a low-level member of the sophisticated bookmaking, gambling and loan-sharking organization that authorities say was run by Nicholas "Nicky the Hat" Cimino between 2002 and 2007.
"He was not in a management position. He was a worker," said Chief Deputy Attorney General Erik Olsen.
Olsen said there was no evidence that Diedrich had engaged in any illegal activity while working in the county courthouse.
The other defendants, including reputed Philly mob associate Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello, are scheduled for a hearing in Delaware County court in March on charges that include gambling, bookmaking, criminal conspiracy and corrupt organizations.
Monacello, 42, of South Philadelphia, who authorities say answers to jailed former consigliere George Borgesi, is also charged in Philadelphia with soliciting aggravated assault. According to a grand-jury presentment, Monacello tried to hire someone to have Angelina - allegedly a "made" member of the mob - beaten so badly he'd be hospitalized.
Monacello's preliminary hearing on that charge is set for next week.
Borgesi, imprisoned in West Virginia, was convicted in 2001 during a 14-week racketeering trial along with former Philadelphia crime boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino.
Thanks to William Bender
Daniel Diedrich, a former supervisor in the Delaware County Domestic Relations Department, pleaded guilty yesterday in Media to one count of bookmaking. He was sentenced to two years' probation and fined $1,000.
Diedrich, 34, of Clifton Heights, was a low-level member of the sophisticated bookmaking, gambling and loan-sharking organization that authorities say was run by Nicholas "Nicky the Hat" Cimino between 2002 and 2007.
"He was not in a management position. He was a worker," said Chief Deputy Attorney General Erik Olsen.
Olsen said there was no evidence that Diedrich had engaged in any illegal activity while working in the county courthouse.
The other defendants, including reputed Philly mob associate Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello, are scheduled for a hearing in Delaware County court in March on charges that include gambling, bookmaking, criminal conspiracy and corrupt organizations.
Monacello, 42, of South Philadelphia, who authorities say answers to jailed former consigliere George Borgesi, is also charged in Philadelphia with soliciting aggravated assault. According to a grand-jury presentment, Monacello tried to hire someone to have Angelina - allegedly a "made" member of the mob - beaten so badly he'd be hospitalized.
Monacello's preliminary hearing on that charge is set for next week.
Borgesi, imprisoned in West Virginia, was convicted in 2001 during a 14-week racketeering trial along with former Philadelphia crime boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino.
Thanks to William Bender
Feds Keeping an Eye on Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio
Ever since Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, reputed mob boss of the Patriarca Crime Family, took the reigns from Boston's Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme in 1996, he's been able to avoid significant legal troubles from law enforcement. But, that stretch may be coming to an end.
Manocchio, 80, is not charged with any crime at this time. However, the Target 12 Investigators have learned within the last several months, FBI agents served a search warrant on Manocchio. Investigators reportedly found a small amount of cash in Manocchio's possession. Cash, investigators said, they could trace as tribute money; which is money paid up to a mob boss.
According to Target 12 sources, Manocchio immediately began shopping around for an attorney. However, it is unclear who, if anyone, he's retained.
Sources on Federal Hill - the Providence neighborhood out of which Manocchio runs the crime family - said they haven't seen Manocchio since the feds moved in, leaving many to wonder if he went on the run. However, law enforcement sources said Manocchio often travels during the winter, and they are not concerned about his absence at this point in time.
Although the FBI won't comment if Manocchio is part of an ongoing criminal investigation, it's no secret agents are keeping an eye on him.
In fact, shortly after arriving in Providence to head up the FBI's Organized Crime Unit for New England, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeffrey Sallet approached Manocchio on Federal Hill in 2007, introduced himself and let him know he was watching.
Thanks to Target 12
Manocchio, 80, is not charged with any crime at this time. However, the Target 12 Investigators have learned within the last several months, FBI agents served a search warrant on Manocchio. Investigators reportedly found a small amount of cash in Manocchio's possession. Cash, investigators said, they could trace as tribute money; which is money paid up to a mob boss.
According to Target 12 sources, Manocchio immediately began shopping around for an attorney. However, it is unclear who, if anyone, he's retained.
Sources on Federal Hill - the Providence neighborhood out of which Manocchio runs the crime family - said they haven't seen Manocchio since the feds moved in, leaving many to wonder if he went on the run. However, law enforcement sources said Manocchio often travels during the winter, and they are not concerned about his absence at this point in time.
Although the FBI won't comment if Manocchio is part of an ongoing criminal investigation, it's no secret agents are keeping an eye on him.
In fact, shortly after arriving in Providence to head up the FBI's Organized Crime Unit for New England, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeffrey Sallet approached Manocchio on Federal Hill in 2007, introduced himself and let him know he was watching.
Thanks to Target 12
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Courtroom Outbursts Don't Prevent Life Sentence for Reputed Mob Crew Boss Frank Calabrese Sr.
With the national media finally interested in Illinois corruption, it's too bad they were focused on Springfield's dancing monkey show and not on what happened in a federal courtroom in Chicago on Wednesday.
That wasn't a monkey dancing on a string. It was an ape. The kind of ape that pulls the strings on the dancing monkeys.
His name is Frank Calabrese, the former Chicago Outfit Chinatown crew boss, convicted of racketeering conspiracy involving seven murders in the FBI's historic Operation Family Secrets case of 18 unsolved hits. Six other bodies were attributed to Calabrese at his sentencing.
Calabrese, 71, wore a wrinkled orange jumpsuit, with old man glasses attached to his head with a thick felt strap. Yet when he'd raise his paws you could see they were once powerful enough to strangle a man until his eyes popped out. Or stab him to death. Or beat him to death. Or pull a trigger. Or set off a bomb and more.
One of the victims was Paul Haggerty, who was 27 in 1976 when the Calabrese crew picked him up to question him about missing jewels. Haggerty was handcuffed, his eyes and mouth taped shut and tortured. Frank strangled him with a rope. They cut his throat and dumped him in the trunk.
On Wednesday, Haggerty's widow, Charlene Moravecek, confronted Calabrese as a parade of victim families told their stories to U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel.
"God bless you!" Calabrese told Moravecek. She rounded on him, shouting, "Don't you mock me! Don't! Your honor, I don't want to hear from him."
Calabrese's own son, Kurt—a convicted Outfit loan shark—appeared before Zagel as a victim, saying his father beat him, belittled him, threatened to bite the nose off his face and kill him. "He was more an enforcer than a father," Kurt said, turning to Frank. "And I want you to apologize for what you did to me and my brother."
Frank shouted that his sons and his hit man brother Nick, who turned federal witness, had betrayed him with lies. "You better apologize for the lies you are telling, that's what you better do!" Frank bellowed, the old man gone now, the Chinatown strangler rampant. "Tell them about the money you stole, the million dollars [cash] you stole from me and the $110,000 that didn't belong to you!" Frank Calabrese said, of mob cash he'd stashed away before going to prison in the 1990s. "If I was such a bad dad, why didn't I do anything to you then? You were treated like a king!"
Kurt stalked out of the courtroom, and I followed him down the hall, where he was leaning against a wall, emotional. "That's the last time I'm ever going to see my father," Kurt told me. "I just wanted him to apologize."
What about the missing $1 million? Did you take it? "No," Kurt said. "All I wanted was an apology. But you see how he was. He still thinks he's the boss."
Frank Calabrese finally got his say, insisting he never killed or beat anyone, that he helped Connie's Pizza, not merely charged them street tax, and that his juice loans were more user-friendly than payday loans. "I'm not no big shot," he said. "I'm not nothing but another human being." He added that his brother Nick was a coward. "Which is why I called him Alfredo, from ' The Godfather,' " speaking of the fictional Corleone who betrayed his own brother.
Zagel gave Frank Calabrese life in prison, saying he'd never seen a case in which two sons and a brother testified against a father. "Perhaps you didn't have a loving family," Zagel said. "Your crimes are unspeakable."
During the Family Secrets trial, the connection between Chicago politics and the Outfit came up often. In one bit of testimony in 2007, Mayor Richard Daley's friend Fred Bruno Barbara, the trucking boss and Rush Street investor, was identified by Nick Calabrese as a willing driver for mob boss Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra on bombing runs.
Daley got so angry when asked about Barbara that he turned purple and shrieked. The governor of Illinois could have called him "cuckoo."
For generations, the Outfit has formed the base of the iron triangle that runs things, and no understanding of politics in Illinois is complete without them.
Sentencing of other bosses continues on Monday. The dancing monkey show in Springfield will be over by then, but if the national media wants to understand Chicago, they should show up in federal court to see how the apes behave.
Thanks to John Kass
That wasn't a monkey dancing on a string. It was an ape. The kind of ape that pulls the strings on the dancing monkeys.
His name is Frank Calabrese, the former Chicago Outfit Chinatown crew boss, convicted of racketeering conspiracy involving seven murders in the FBI's historic Operation Family Secrets case of 18 unsolved hits. Six other bodies were attributed to Calabrese at his sentencing.
Calabrese, 71, wore a wrinkled orange jumpsuit, with old man glasses attached to his head with a thick felt strap. Yet when he'd raise his paws you could see they were once powerful enough to strangle a man until his eyes popped out. Or stab him to death. Or beat him to death. Or pull a trigger. Or set off a bomb and more.
One of the victims was Paul Haggerty, who was 27 in 1976 when the Calabrese crew picked him up to question him about missing jewels. Haggerty was handcuffed, his eyes and mouth taped shut and tortured. Frank strangled him with a rope. They cut his throat and dumped him in the trunk.
On Wednesday, Haggerty's widow, Charlene Moravecek, confronted Calabrese as a parade of victim families told their stories to U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel.
"God bless you!" Calabrese told Moravecek. She rounded on him, shouting, "Don't you mock me! Don't! Your honor, I don't want to hear from him."
Calabrese's own son, Kurt—a convicted Outfit loan shark—appeared before Zagel as a victim, saying his father beat him, belittled him, threatened to bite the nose off his face and kill him. "He was more an enforcer than a father," Kurt said, turning to Frank. "And I want you to apologize for what you did to me and my brother."
Frank shouted that his sons and his hit man brother Nick, who turned federal witness, had betrayed him with lies. "You better apologize for the lies you are telling, that's what you better do!" Frank bellowed, the old man gone now, the Chinatown strangler rampant. "Tell them about the money you stole, the million dollars [cash] you stole from me and the $110,000 that didn't belong to you!" Frank Calabrese said, of mob cash he'd stashed away before going to prison in the 1990s. "If I was such a bad dad, why didn't I do anything to you then? You were treated like a king!"
Kurt stalked out of the courtroom, and I followed him down the hall, where he was leaning against a wall, emotional. "That's the last time I'm ever going to see my father," Kurt told me. "I just wanted him to apologize."
What about the missing $1 million? Did you take it? "No," Kurt said. "All I wanted was an apology. But you see how he was. He still thinks he's the boss."
Frank Calabrese finally got his say, insisting he never killed or beat anyone, that he helped Connie's Pizza, not merely charged them street tax, and that his juice loans were more user-friendly than payday loans. "I'm not no big shot," he said. "I'm not nothing but another human being." He added that his brother Nick was a coward. "Which is why I called him Alfredo, from ' The Godfather,' " speaking of the fictional Corleone who betrayed his own brother.
Zagel gave Frank Calabrese life in prison, saying he'd never seen a case in which two sons and a brother testified against a father. "Perhaps you didn't have a loving family," Zagel said. "Your crimes are unspeakable."
During the Family Secrets trial, the connection between Chicago politics and the Outfit came up often. In one bit of testimony in 2007, Mayor Richard Daley's friend Fred Bruno Barbara, the trucking boss and Rush Street investor, was identified by Nick Calabrese as a willing driver for mob boss Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra on bombing runs.
Daley got so angry when asked about Barbara that he turned purple and shrieked. The governor of Illinois could have called him "cuckoo."
For generations, the Outfit has formed the base of the iron triangle that runs things, and no understanding of politics in Illinois is complete without them.
Sentencing of other bosses continues on Monday. The dancing monkey show in Springfield will be over by then, but if the national media wants to understand Chicago, they should show up in federal court to see how the apes behave.
Thanks to John Kass
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