Holiday Dinner Plans for a Mobster

What does a reputed Chicago mob boss under house arrest do for holiday dinner?

First, if possible, get a judge to let you outside your house.

Next, don't waste the opportunity and get approval to go to the swanky Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab in downtown Chicago on Christmas Eve.

That's just what reputed Cicero mob boss Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno did.

A federal magistrate judge recently approved that trip for Sarno, 51, of Westchester, to have dinner with his extended family at Joe's Seafood, 60 E. Grand.

Sarno, out on $1 million bond, is typically allowed outside his home only to go to church, the doctor or court.

Sarno -- described in court documents as a made member of the Chicago mob -- is awaiting trial next year for allegedly overseeing the bombing of a Berwyn business that was competing against the mob in the lucrative video poker business.

Federal officials also believe that Sarno discussed putting out juice loans with an associate who is a reputed high-ranking member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang, records show.

In 1995, Sarno was sentenced to 6½ years in prison for his role in a mob racketeering case.

Sarno, also dubbed "Fat Ass" by some colleagues, has denied any wrongdoing in the current case. His attorney could not be reached for comment.

A manager at Joe's Seafood had nothing to say Tuesday about Sarno's choice of restaurant.

The good news for Sarno is that the restaurant's specialty, stone crabs, are in season. Jumbo stone crabs -- three per order -- go for $57.95, according to the restaurant's online menu.

If he has a taste for steak, the bone-in New York strip will run him $45.95. And he can wash it all down with a bottle of Chateau Pavie at $490 a bottle on the restaurant's reserve wine list.

Prosecutors wanted it made clear to Sarno that he could make no trips other than to the restaurant on Christmas Eve, and he could only mix with family members -- not his alleged crime family -- and the judge agreed.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Tweet

Organized Crime Continues to Flourish

Editor's note: Misha Glenny covered Central Europe for The Guardian and the BBC, writing about the end of the Soviet empire and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. He is the author of "McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers" and three books about eastern Europe and the Balkans. Glenny discussed international organized crime in his talk at the TEDGlobal conference in July and in the following interview by Antonia Ward for the September issue of "design mind" magazine, the publication of the global innovation firm, frog design.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, while chronicling the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and in the Balkan states, journalist and TEDGlobal speaker Misha Glenny gained a deep understanding of the influence of eastern European privatized law enforcement -- otherwise known as the mafia. This led him to write a book called "McMafia: Seriously Organized Crime," for which he traveled the world, talking to victims, criminals, and the police officers trying to catch them. Glenny speaks about his research and the risks he took to get the story.

Antonia Ward: At TEDGlobal, you mentioned the growth of counterfeit goods, the rise in fake malaria drugs and the threat to cyber infrastructure. Why are we seeing these kinds of atypical mafia activities?

Misha Glenny: Just like any other business in a recession, some of organized crime's main trading activities take a nosedive. But while sales of some commodities dwindle, other goods and services record significant increases. As the credit crunch started to bite last autumn, police forces throughout Europe noticed a shift in the focus of large criminal syndicates away from their traditional activities of drugs and prostitutes towards counterfeit and financial crimes.

According to the U.N.'s Vienna-based drug czar, Antonio Maria Costa, the mob is already acting as a banker not only to consumers but to banks themselves. His team has uncovered information that the mob's money "has been feeding the financial sector since the second half of last year. ... While hard to prove, there are nonetheless indications that some banks have even been saved from going under in this way."

Ward: What was the most frightening experience you had while doing the research for McMafia?

Glenny: I was sick with fear when going to meet representatives of the FARC in Cali, Colombia, largely because kidnapping journalists and holding them for years in appalling conditions in the jungle is one of the group's stock-in-trades. The meeting, when it happened, involved several moves from one part of Cali to another. I received a new text message each time to indicate our next destination. The FARC was clearly monitoring us to see if the police or the [Drug Enforcement Administration] had also come along for the party, but eventually they were convinced that my translator and I were alone. In the end, these interviewees were courteous, serious and more aware of their role in a global economy than most of those I interviewed.

The least pleasant meeting was with a gang boss in Odessa, Ukraine. It had taken me months of persistence to get him to agree to see me. When we met in a cafe, he was an archetype -- short, thuggish-looking, and sporting a permanent scowl. He had brought along two of his henchmen. He was extremely edgy, and whenever I strayed from the agreed topics of conversation, he reminded me of our prior agreement to avoid certain subjects.

Since the book was published, I have been sent two covert warnings about my writings by Balkan groups, and the book has been banned in Dubai -- something I wear as a badge of honor.

Ward: Why were so many of the people in your book willing to talk to you, an author and journalist, about the intimate details of their operation? Weren't they afraid they'd be found out?

Glenny: This depends on multiple factors. In the Balkans and eastern Europe for example, several people involved in the trade I spoke to were very open about their activities. But they pointed out that because in the early 1990s states had collapsed all over the region and the economies were in chaos, these gangsters were the only force that could actually ensure that people got food on their tables. Sure, they took the lion's share for themselves, but they were the essential "midwives of capitalism," as I refer to them. So they often felt quite proud about their role and were unwilling to express contrition.

In Japan, the yakuza were prepared to talk because they believe themselves to be an integral and legitimate part of Japanese society (not a sentiment shared by everyone). In Brazil, you can't stop anyone from talking -- victims, police, lawyers or gangsters. It is just in their culture -- they talk, talk, talk.

Ward: You talk about the systemic threat of organized crime. Just how much trouble are we in?

Glenny: Organized crime poses its greatest challenge to the developing world. Illicit trade flows from the south to the north: Drugs, trafficked women, counterfeit goods, migrant labor and the like move from the developing to the developed world. Therefore, the hubs of global criminal operations tend to be located in countries with weak economies and fragile state institutions.

With two glaring exceptions, Japan and Italy, organized crime groups maintain a low profile in the developed world, where state institutions are usually strong enough to contain the impact. However, as the United States has demonstrated since the 1920s, it can often be a long, hard struggle. But in general, organized crime groups do not like to advertise their presence in the developed world because, in contrast to the other markets, this disrupts their smooth operation.

Too much violence, for example, draws the attention of the media, the public, the police and politicians. So although organized crime is driven by consumer demand in the West, southern nations bear the brunt of the violence and instability which the business engenders.

Thanks to Antonia Ward

Tweet

Reputed Mob Underboss Summoned to Court

Martin Taccetta, a reputed former underboss of the Lucchese crime family’s New Jersey faction, has been summoned to a Newark courtroom next week to possibly resolve the charges pending against him in a mob case that has resulted in the convictions of 19 others.

U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler signed an order last week directing the warden of New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, where Taccetta is currently incarcerated, to have him brought before the judge for a plea hearing on Tuesday. But Taccetta apparently has not signed off on a plea deal.

“All I can tell you is that there were plea negotiations and its Mr. Taccetta’s position at this point that he’s not going to plea guilty of anything,” his attorney, Maria Noto, said Thursday. “He maintains his innocence.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald D. Wigler, who is prosecuting the case, declined to comment Thursday on the negotiations or the scheduled plea hearing.

Taccetta, 58, of East Hanover, was among 23 reputed members and associates of the Gambino and Lucchese crime families indicted in May 2008 on charges of engaging in what the FBI called a “veritable smorgasbord of criminal activity” – illegal gambling, loan-sharking, extortion, identity theft, fraud and labor racketeering.

The defendants were accused of shaking down lunch truck operators, putting mobsters in no-show jobs, using union muscle to collect bribes to allow non-union workers on construction sites and raking in hefty profits from bettors who wagered more than $1 million a month.

The mob also allegedly targeted a Lowe’s home improvement store in Paterson, where conspirators bought high-ticket power tools and appliances by switching bar code labels from less expensive items and attempted to steal the identities of patrons who applied for Lowe’s credit cards.

Taccetta was charged in only three of the 30 counts in the indictment. He was accused of conspiring to use extortion to collect a loan from an unidentified debtor. He also charged with conspiring with the lead defendant, Andrew Merola, and others to demand and receive about $20,000 in unlawful labor payments to allow non-union labor on a construction project at a Morristown BMW dealership in 2007.

Merola, 42, of East Hanover, is among the defendants still in the case. He is identified in the indictment as one of the Gambino crime family’s highest ranking members in New Jersey and is accused of overseeing a mob crew that profited from gambling, loan-sharking, extortion and labor racketeering.

Also awaiting trial are Edward Deak, 45, of Secaucus, an alleged “gambling agent” charged with one count of operating an illegal gambling business, and Kyle Ragusa, 42, of East Hanover, an alleged associate and member of Merola’s crew, charged with racketeering, operating a gambling business, loan-sharking and wire-fraud.

Taccetta had been under house arrest until July when the New Jersey Supreme Court reinstated his sentence of life plus 10 years in prison in a 1993 state case in which Taccetta was convicted of racketeering and extortion but acquitted of murder in the golf-club beating death of an Ocean County businessman.

Noto said the reinstated life sentence was “the reason I was in negotiations at all, but at this point there is no plea agreement.”

Thanks to Peter J. Sampson

Tweet

Junior Gotti's Job Program

Argus reported that Junior Gotti walked free Monday after a New York jury deadlocked for the fourth time over his racketeering charges. Nobody on the jury wants to incur the wrath of the Mafia. It's the only company that's still hiring and will never leave New York.

Tweet

Reputed Mob-Backed Video Poker Machines Under Investigation

A federal investigation of mob-backed video poker machines is now under way in the Bridgeport neighborhood, sources have told the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC5 News. And tavern owners, in whose bars the poker machines were located, have been called to testify before a federal grand jury.

The raids, according to law enforcement sources, began over the summer.

“They hit several taverns, 10 or 12 of them maybe,” confirmed attorney Joseph Lopez, who said the FBI took all the circuit boards out of the machines.

One such raid, according to a knowledgeable source, took place at the Redwood Lounge at 3200 S. Wallace. Reached at home, the bar’s owner, Nick Spazio, declined to comment when asked if his tavern was the object of an FBI raid. “Sweetheart, I can’t really talk to you on the advice of my lawyer . . . we better leave it alone,” he told a reporter.

The bar is now closed.

Authorities believe the video poker machines, which produce illegal payouts, tie back to the operation of the late Joseph “Shorty” LaMantia, a top lieutenant in the 26th Street Crew.

LaMantia, in turn, worked under Frank Calabrese Sr., who was convicted in 2007 in the historic Family Secrets trial, involving 18 unsolved mob murders. Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo and three others were found guilty on racketeering and conspiracy charges.

A jury ruled that Calabrese, 72, took part in seven outfit hits and ran an illegal gambling operation. He was sentenced to life in prison.

At the end of the trial, Robert Grant, special agent in charge of the Chicago FBI office, said his agents’ work was not done. “It’s not the end of the Outfit,” he said. “I would declare to you right now we are actively investigating the Chicago Outfit.”

Video poker machines have long been a staple of Chicago taverns and a rich source of revenue for the Chicago mob.

Currently, it is the state that is desperate for revenue. And so in July, Gov. Quinn signed a bill to legalize video poker as a way to fund state construction projects. But those machines won’t be able to legally make payouts until the Illinois Gaming Board can hire sufficient staff to license them and enforce their operation. A Gaming Board official said the goal is to be up and running by the end of 2010.

The plans call for an estimated 45,000 to 60,000 legal video poker machines in bars and taverns statewide. So far, about 49 cities, town and counties, including Cook and DuPage, have opted to ban them. (The county bans apply only to unincorporated areas.)

The Legislature, according to the Gaming Board, allocated $3.3 million to the board in fiscal year 2009 and $4.7 million in fiscal year 2010, allowing it to double its existing staff. Half of the new hires will be dedicated to monitoring video poker machines.

Critics argue that even with additional personnel it will be a daunting, if not impossible, challenge to wire all the machines to a central location and ensure no criminal influence.

Then there is the question of what will the mob do? Jim Wagner, a former FBI supervisor and past head of the Chicago Crime Commission, believes video poker remains too lucrative for the Outfit to cede its profits to the state.

There’s “too much money to be made with those machines to turn their backs on it,” Wagner said. “They have their own equipment out there and that won’t change.”

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment for this story.

Thanks to Carol Marin and Don Mosely

Tweet