Junior Gotti the Hollywood Scriptwriter?

He is one of the most feared men in New York, with a family history of bribery, tax evasion, extortion, and murder. But after his trial on charges of conspiracy to commit murder ended in a jury deadlock two years ago, John Gotti Jr—son of the ‘Teflon Don’ John J. Gotti, and former head of the Gambino crime family—says he’s ready to give up a life of organised crime and finally go legit.

His new job after giving up the Mafia? Hollywood scriptwriter.

“He’s willing to go all the way, revealing as much as possible [in his screenplay] without hurting anyone who’s still involved in the street life,” Tony D’Aiuto, head of the New York production company Triplicity Entertainment, told the influential film industry website Deadline Hollywood this week. D’Auito is certainly familiar with the material: he used to act as the Gotti family’s defence lawyer.

It is thought that Gotti, 46—whose sister, Victoria, was until recently a reality television star and a columnist for the New York Post—hopes to turn his life story into a Goodfellas-style feature film, full-length documentary, and a book. He intends to pitch his story to major Hollywood studios as an epic father-and-son melodrama.

It’s unlikely, however, that Gotti will want to revisit the most notorious incident of his life, when the FBI searched the basement of one of his properties in Queens and found a list of ‘made’ members of his organisation, including the names of guests who attended his wedding—examples including Big Louie, Jackie Nose, Sammy Bull, Benny Eggs, Fat Andy, and Lil Funzie— and the dollar values of their gifts.

Agents also found a gun with a silencer, a semi-automatic rifle, and $348,700 in cash.

The bust inspired headlines such as “Like godfather, like son? Not quite” and an article in USA Today describing Gotti as a ‘dumbfella’, and Gotti was later sentenced to 77 months in prison.

Nevertheless, If Gotti’s new career is successful, it could provide the general public with the most authentic inside account of the New York mob since an associate of the Lucchese family, Henry Hill, turned his life story into the book Wiseguy in the mid-1980s. The book was later adapted for the big screen, and became the Martin Scorsese movie Goodfellas.

Hill’s crimes included participation in the notorious $6 million Lufthansa heist of 1978—the biggest robbery in US history at the time—fixing basketball games in Boston, and smuggling heroin and cocaine.

Hill’s circumstances were very different to Gotti’s, however: when the publishing company Simon & Schuster bought the rights to his story in 1981 for a reported $96,250 (£63,000)—the equivalent of $230,000 today—he had already negotiated so-called ‘transactional immunity’ for his crimes in return for appearing as the FBI’s star witness in 10 trials, ultimately putting 50 of mobsters in jail, including 'Uncle Paulie' Vario and Jimmy ‘the Gent’ Burke (played by Robert De Niro in Goodfellas).

Authorities in New York later attempted to block Hill from being paid for Wiseguy under the Son of Sam law, which was first enacted to stop the serial killer David Berkowitz (who believed he was being controlled by a demon father-figure named Sam) from profiting from his crimes. The effort failed thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in Hill’s favour: it accepted Simon & Schuster’s argument that the ex-mobster's First Amendment rights should prevail, especially given that he had never even been arrested, never mind charged, for most of his crimes.

It’s unlikely that Gutty could make the same case, unless his life were heavily fictionalised.

During his most recent trial, in 2008, prosecutors attempted to link him to the murders of three men during the 1980s and 1990s. Ely Honig, an assistant United States attorney, told the court that Gotti was a dangerous man. “The defendant ordered and oversaw the three murders,” he said.

Regardless, the jurors failed to reach a verdict.

The previous case against Gotti came in 2005 when he was charged of ordered the kidnapping of Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. As in the 2008 trial, the jurors deadlocked. Two retrials also failed.

Ironically, working on the screenplay of his life could prove to be the most dangerous thing the former mobster has ever done. When Hill was writing Wiseguy with the author Nick Pileggi, for example, a $2 million hit was put out on his life.

Contacted yesteday by The Times, Hill declined to comment on Gotti’s plans.

“He could care less,” said a representative for the ex-mobster, adding that Hill blamed the Gambino family for the execution of his former friend, Tommy ‘Two Gun’ DeSimone.

Thanks to Chris Ayres

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Ivy League Gangster Now a Criminal Informant?

More than forty wiseguys who took an oath to take their Mafia secrets to the grave have later changed their minds and cut deals with the feds to tell all they knew. But while mob squealing was a growth industry in recent years, the elite Genovese family has managed to keep its members mostly in line. Known in mob parlance as "the Westside" because that was its traditional geographic base of power, the Genovese's are considered so good at what they do that admiring agents dubbed them "the Ivy League of organized crime."

Until recent weeks, the family had suffered only three known defectors. But Ganglandnews.com is reporting that the feds have quietly won a key new recruit to their side.

Late last month, a Genovese soldier named Anthony "Bingy" Arillotta, who was being held in the federal lockup downtown to face a murder rap, was released from prison custody, destination untold. Arillotta, 42, had been running things for the family in Massachusetts. He was accused of masterminding the whacking of his predecessor, Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno who was gunned down in a Springfield, Mass. parking lot in 2003. His switch in loyalties is bad news for a lot of wiseguys, especially his former acting boss, Arthur "Little Guy" Nigro, who is also accused in Bruno's murder.

Actually, the Bruno hit showed signs of severely declining standards for the Genovese crew. The shooter recruited to carry out Big Al's murder, a tattooed ex-con named Frankie Roche, turned squealer himself a couple of years ago. They way he told the story, he waited for the mobster to finish his usual Sunday night card game. "I walked up to Bruno and said, 'Hey Al, you looking for me?' and I popped him." Nice line. Bad form.

Thanks to Tom Robbins

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Skinny Joey Merlino Family Ruling Slammed by New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement

The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement fired a verbal blast at a Casino Control Commission hearing examiner Monday, contending that the agency had "distorted" facts and ignored evidence in recommending that relatives of a jailed mob boss be granted a casino service-industry license.

The recommendation was "replete with distortions of testimony and proven facts and/or selective omission of critical facts and testimony," attorneys for the DGE wrote in a blistering 24-page list of exceptions to findings of William T. Sommeling.

Sommeling, who sits on the five-member Casino Control Commission, was appointed hearing examiner in the case.

Last month, he ruled that Joseph N. Merlino, his mother, Phyllis, and the Pleasantville construction company they own, Bayshore Rebar, were entitled to casino service-industry licenses.

Merlino is the cousin of jailed mob boss Joseph S. "Skinny Joey" Merlino. Phyllis Merlino is the jailed mobster's aunt. They and their company had twice before been denied licenses because of suspected mob ties.

Sommeling, who heard 14 days of testimony in a hearing that stretched over two months, found that the Merlinos and their company had severed ties to any organized-crime figures, including family members.

He blasted the DGE for its conduct during the hearing process, charging that it presented evidence that was "unreliable, uncorroborated and, in some instances, demonstrably false."

The pointed comments in Sommeling's findings and the DGE response are a marked departure from the usual tone of filings in licensing cases.

The full five-member commission is expected to hold a hearing next month to vote on Sommeling's recommendation. The commission can accept, modify, or reject it.

In a response that was at times dripping with sarcasm, the DGE urged the commission to again deny the Merlinos and their company the right to do casino-related construction work.

Sommeling's decision "manages to render meaningless" the standards and precedents established over the years by the commission to keep mob influences out of the casino industry, the DGE argued.

The DGE's response was presented in a document prepared by state Deputy Attorney General Alice Way and Assistant Attorney General Anthony J. Zarrillo Jr., prosecutors in the Merlino hearing.

The Merlinos' attorney, John Donnelly, has five days to respond.

In their filing, the DGE lawyers claimed that Sommeling came into the hearing with a preconceived notion of the case and that the DGE "lost . . . before its opening statement."

They chided Sommeling for showing favoritism, contending that "diplomacy has been afforded to the applicants, while derision has been saved for the Division."

The commissioner misunderstood or failed to adequately analyze scores of phone records that showed contact between the Merlinos and organized-crime figures, the DGE argued.

They included calls from Joseph S. Merlino and mobster Martin Angelina while the men were in federal prison in Philadelphia in 2000 and 2001 on racketeering charges.

The DGE cited more than a dozen calls from the inmates to the unlisted telephone of Joseph N. Merlino.

It also argued that Sommeling ignored the significance of calls to and from numbers listed in the names of the wives of mob figures, including the wife of reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph Ligambi.

Sommeling's ruling, the DGE argued, "contravenes the long established law enforcement intelligence technique that recognizes organized crime affiliates use their wives, mothers and girlfriends to circumvent detection of their criminal activities."

Finally, the DGE argued that Sommeling erred when he dismissed allegations that Anthony Giraldi, a longtime friend of Joseph N. Merlino's, was a mob associate.

Giraldi, a South Philadelphia plumber, was described by the DGE as a bookmaker and associate of the local crime family. Among other things, it cited social gatherings he had attended, such as weddings and funerals, where mob figures were present.

The Merlinos, who testified in their own defense, said they were never part of organized crime. But in order to satisfy the concerns of gaming regulators, they said, they made a decision about 10 years ago to sever all ties with the Merlino side of their family.

Thanks to George Anastasia

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Organized Crime and the Las Vegas Sands

With just a week or two to go for the scheduled opening of the US $5.5 billion Marina Bay Sands integrated Resort, the global gaming company Las Vegas Sands (LVS) has been blighted with a fresh set of allegations linking them with organized crime.

The new allegation are concerned with Cheung Chi Tai, who was the person in charge of one of the VIP rooms at Sands Macau Casino. He has been implicated in a murder for hire case involving a dealer from the Sands Macau who was suspected in assisting a casino customer cheat to a value hitting a multi-million dollar total. Cheung Chi Tai has been accused of masterminding the plan to murder the dealer who was suspected of being part of the multi-million dollar cheat.

It has been said that Cheung Chi Tai has been an investor in the Neptune Group, a PLC company involved in casino junkets. Through examination of court record from Hong Kong, depositions for a former Las Vegas Sands president and interviews from both US and Macau law enforcement and security officials has revealed a connection between LVS and Mr Cheung.

An Las Vegas Sands Spokesperson has been reported in saying, “To our knowledge, Mr Cheung Chi Tai is not listed as a director or share holder with any of the gaming promoters that the company uses in Macau.” The new allegations have come just before Las Vegas Sands plans to open it’s new multi-billion dollar resort on the 27th of April this year.

Las Vegas Sands are not alone with the alleged organized crime links. MGM Mirage have found themselves with similar predicament with alleged ties to organized crime, as MGM Grand Macau is half owned by Pansy Ho. A Hong Kong Businesswoman whose father, Stanley Ho the billionaire entrepreneur has been accused of extensive ties to organized crime in China. No evidence has ever be provided that shows any links to Pansy Ho and such criminal enterprises.

Thanks to Casino Jessie

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Organized Crime Investigator Dominic Catrambone Dies at 86

Dominic V. Catrambone, 86, formerly of Mayfair, who investigated organized crime for the IRS and the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, died of an apparent heart attack Tuesday, March 30, at Brittany Pointe Estates, a retirement community in Lansdale.

For 25 years, Mr. Catrambone was a special agent for the IRS in Philadelphia and New York, where he was part of a task force investigating fraud by organized crime members. "He was very aggressive," said a daughter, Maria Catrambone Rosen.

After retiring from the IRS in the mid-1970s, Mr. Catrambone established and directed the financial investigative division of the Revenue Department. In 1981, he recommended to his superiors that they investigate a "major organized-crime figure" allegedly operating a prostitution racket in Reading.

When his superiors rejected his recommendation, Mr. Catrambone shared information about the prostitution racket with the state police and State Rep. Thomas Caltagirone (D., Berks). When they learned he had been a whistle-blower, his superiors fired Mr. Catrambone for "insubordination . . . and continued defiance."

Caltagirone then hired him. "I wanted to right an injustice. Dom deserved to earn his pension," Caltagirone said.

Mr. Catrambone also worked for a state senator until the mid-1980s and then was a private investigator for several years.

A graduate of West Philadelphia Catholic High School, Mr. Catrambone served in the Navy aboard a PT boat in the South Pacific during World War II.

After his discharge, he earned a bachelor's degree from La Salle University.

In 1946, he married Clementine Celia Catrambone. Their families were from the same town in Italy, and they had known each other since childhood. She died in 1996.

Mr. Catrambone enjoyed bridge games at Brittany Pointe Estates, where he had lived for 10 years, and was also a member of the Brittany Pointe Songsters, a choral group, his daughter said.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Catrambone is survived by a son, Joseph; daughters Rosemary Fair, Anita LaBarge, and Loretta Lawson; and eight grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 10:30 a.m., Monday, April 5, at Corpus Christi Church, 900 Sumneytown Pike, Lansdale. Friends may call from 9 a.m. Burial will be in SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Marple Township.

Thanks to Sally A. Downey

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