Reputed Colombo Crime Family Capo, Michael Uvino, Gets 10 Years in Prison

A reputed Colombo crime family captain convicted of running illegal card games on Long Island and assaulting two men who robbed one of his clubs was sentenced Friday in Brooklyn to 10 years in prison.

Bookmaker Michael Uvino, 42, of Little Neck, got the stiff sentence despite insisting that he was a victim of gambling addiction, and despite pleas for mercy from his ex-cop father and a nun who praised his charitable work.

U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein told Uvino that even nonviolent mob rackets like gambling had contributed to the Mafia's destructive effects on the New York City region over four decades. "He's sworn to be a man of the Mafia for his life, and I'm convinced he'll go back," Weinstein told Uvino's lawyer. "The youngsters in this city have to understand that they can't join this organization, and that when they do they destroy their lives."

Prosecutors accused Uvino of bookmaking and running illegal gambling clubs on Wellwood Avenue in Lindenhurst and out of a Sons of Italy hall on Sunrise Highway in West Babylon. He was convicted in December.

"His sin is the gambling," the defendant's father, Carmine Uvino, told Weinstein. "I think you're being overly excessive."

Two associates of Uvino received lesser sentences from Weinstein Friday. Brian Dono, 38, of Lindenhurst, was sentenced to 46 months in prison, and Philip Costanza, 46, of the Bronx, received a 24-month prison term.

According to court papers, the government has seized the William Paca Lodge in West Babylon. The proceeds of a forfeiture sale will be split 50/50 with the local affiliate, which has been severed from the statewide Sons of Italy because of the charges.

Thanks to John Riley

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New Boss Running the Boston Mafia

There’s a new don in town.

Lt. Stephen Johnson of the Massachusetts State Police, special services unit, confirmed today that a new gangster has supplanted Carmen “The Cheeseman” DiNunzio as godfather as the Boston mafia.

DiNunzio, 51, pleaded guilty in Salem Superior Court to extortion and gaming charges as part of a joint state and federal sentencing agreement. He’ll serve six years in a federal prison starting in September.

Johnson declined to say who is now in charge of the mob in Boston.

Despite busting up a widespread bookmaking operation north of Boston and putting DiNunzio away, Johnson said, “it’s just a drop in the bucket,” adding that the mafia is alive and well in Boston.

DiNunzio will be sentenced in federal court Sept. 24 on charges he attempted to bribe a Big Dig official over a dirt deal. He will be sentenced Sept. 25 in Salem.

DiNunzio was facing up to 52 years behind bars. DiNunzio left court without commenting.

DiNunzio’s longtime attorney, Anthony Cardinale, said his client is “anxious to get on with the next phase of his life,” while adding that he’s concerned about his health problems, including diabetes.

Cardinale said the federal case was “particularly troubling” because his client was caught on tape. “There was not much we could do,” he said. “Viewing both of them together it was our decision to make the best deal we could.”

Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said state police spent many years on the investigation.

Thanks to Laurel J. Sweet

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Junior Gotti Denied Bail

Accused Mafia boss John "Junior" Gotti was denied bail by a federal judge on Wednesday in a setback two months before he faces his fourth trial in five years on federal racketeering charges.

Gotti, 45, was tried three times previously on racketeering charges including that he headed the Gambino crime family. The most recent was in 2006 when a judge declared a mistrial because jurors were deadlocked.

Two previous trials also were voided when juries failed to reach a verdict.

In Wednesday's bail arguments held in Manhattan federal court, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel sided with prosecutors who argued that a history of witness tampering meant Gotti should remain in jail pending trial.

Prosecutor Elie Honig said new evidence not presented at previous trials included a mob associate who will testify that in 2005 Gotti said they could escape criminal charges by pretending they had quit the crime family and had already received the "mob stamp of approval" to fake a withdrawal.

Gotti's lawyer Charles Carnesi said he will again argue that Gotti withdrew from the Mafia, a unique defense that has proved instrumental to Gotti winning the three mistrials. "It is absolutely not a different case. It charges the same crimes," Carnesi said, arguing the case should be dropped.

Gotti is accused of taking control of the Gambino family from his father, John J. Gotti, who was known as the "Teflon Don" for his many years evading criminal conviction.

The elder Gotti was finally convicted of murder, racketeering, conspiracy and other charges in 1992. He died in prison in 2002.

"Junior" is accused of murder, robbery, kidnapping, extortion and bribery from 1983 to 2008. His trial is scheduled to begin September 14.

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"Public Enemies" vs "The Untouchables" Throw Down

Brandishing a murderers' row of cheekbones and all the muzzle money can buy, Michael Mann's Public Enemies offers us a romantic vision of the Depression-era bandit John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) as he's chased by a federal agent (Christian Bale) across the Midwest. Over two decades ago, Brian De Palma's hit The Untouchables gave us a decidedly more black-and-white take on cops and robbers, with a team of virtuous good guys working to unravel the blood-and-booze-soaked empire of the Chicago mob boss Al Capone (Robert De Niro). So, when Mann's brooding crime epic and De Palma's sensational action flick face off, which of these pictures runs away with the loot?

The Long Arm of the Law

Public Enemies: Stone-faced FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) is unrelenting in his pursuit of Dillinger, despite having issues with the strong-arm tactics encouraged by a young J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup).

The Untouchables: Idealistic Treasury official Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is such a paragon of virtue that he needs to be schooled by loyal beat cop Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery) in the ways of Chicago crime-fighting.

Winner: The Untouchables. Ness is a bit one-dimensional, but Malone and the other "untouchables" are the heart of this flick.


Mythical Actors, Mythical Outlaws

Public Enemies: Thanks to a spree of bank robberies in which he refuses to take ordinary citizens' money, Depp's John Dillinger achieves folk-hero status during the Great Depression.

The Untouchables: Although he claims to be a man of the people, De Niro's Al Capone is a brutal thug who will stoop to beating an associate with a baseball bat when the situation demands it.

Winner: Public Enemies. De Niro makes for a great movie monster, but Depp's Zen outlaw has a riveting appeal.

Violence, Violence, and More Violence

Public Enemies: Epic gun battles plague Dillinger and company. Almost always, it's because some idiot started shooting without provocation.

The Untouchables: Although most of them are new to gunplay, Ness and his men quickly become adept at shoot-outs -- most notably when they have to intercept a mob bookkeeper at a Chicago train station and a baby carriage gets in the way.

Winner: The Untouchables. Public Enemies has some beautifully intense sequences, but De Palma's film is basically one stunning set-piece after another.

Verdict
Winner: A tie. It's hard to match The Untouchables for sheer entertainment value, but Public Enemies' moody, ethereal take on the Dillinger saga is lovely and haunting.

Thanks to Bilge Ebiri

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City of Chicago Squeezes Widow of Man Squeezed by The Chicago Outfit

Whether the name of Richie Urso ever makes it into the corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich next June is anybody's guess.

You've probably never heard of Richie Urso. But the FBI sure has heard of him.

His is a classic Chicago story, about a beefy yet charming guy born on Grand Avenue, who got in trouble with the law as a kid, only to make political friends and become extremely wealthy.

He was arrested once for jewelry theft in the '60s by the Outfit's top Chicago police detective, William Hanhardt. Urso's alleged partner in the theft was the mob enforcer Frankie Cullotta, who later became the technical adviser for the movie "Casino." The charges against Urso went away. Like I said, it's a Chicago story.

Richie went from the trucking business into real estate, dropping thousands of dollars in contributions to politicians like Mayor Richard Daley and former Gov. Dead Meat. He hung around with bankers, real estate players, insiders at the Cook County Board of (Tax) Review, at Mart Anthony's Restaurant on Randolph Street.

He was worth millions in real estate. He was also the victim of an Outfit shakedown that figured in the FBI's landmark Family Secrets case against top mob bosses.

Now the FBI is going through his business, interested in his associates, including former Mutual Bank of Harvey boss Amrish Mahajan, who has dropped off the political map. Though not charged, Uncle Amrish is under investigation as a top Blagojevich fundraiser. "My husband was excited because he was supposed to go with Amrish and Daley on a trip to India," said Richie's wife, Joanne Urso, recalling what she told federal investigators. "They were all going to go together. But then he died."

Daley and his wife, Maggie, made the trip with a Chicago business delegation.

Amrish Mahajan was a political connection for Daley, Blagojevich and other politicians to the Indian community. His wife, Anita, said, "He did not go on the trip with the mayor."

Anita -- charged with bilking the state out of millions of dollars in phony drug tests -- said her husband was in India, and unreachable.

After Richie's death in 2003, lenders called in their notes. Lawyers demanded big fees. The will that he told Joanne was stashed in a Mutual Bank safe deposit box was never found. And Daley's City Hall, which had never given Richie much trouble, suddenly slapped Joanne with a series of citations on their properties.

City Hall is also demanding she sell Richie's prized 24-acre site just west of the Cook County Jail for millions less than she says it's worth. Ald. George Cardenas (12th) is demanding the site for a park. "I'm getting ripped off by everybody. By everybody," Joanne Urso said.

She told me Richie died of a heart attack on the kitchen floor of a girlfriend's home, on April 15, 2003. "You should call her," she said.

So we did. The woman is Mary Ann Dinovo, who works in human resources for the county tax review board, which handles tax appeals for every parcel of real estate in the county.

"He said, 'What do you got to eat?' " recalled Dinovo. "I'd just made a big tuna salad. He said, 'Can I have some?' The TV was on in the kitchen. The fork dropped out of his hand. He said he felt sick and went to the bathroom."

Minutes later, Richie Urso, his mouth full of tuna salad, was dead at age 61.

"It was karma that we met," Dinovo said. "We loved to do things together, go to shows, go to Navy Pier. ... He'd always play like he was poor. 'I'm just a poor truck driver,' he'd say. Sometimes we'd drive by a piece of property and he'd ask me who owned it."

Did you help him find out who owned it? "Absolutely not," said Dinovo, who said she has not been contacted by federal authorities. "I never knew what the hell he had. I didn't ask. But how do you think I felt when after he died, his friends told me that he was worth, like, $50 million? I said, 'What?' "

In late November of last year, Blagojevich hadn't yet been arrested. But the noose was tightening.

About a week before the FBI knocked on the governor's door, they knocked on Joanne Urso's door. FBI agents and a lawyer from the U.S. attorney's office wanted to chat.

"They asked about everything that was going on with the banks, the lawyers, our properties," Joanne Urso said. "... They asked about Amrish Mahajan and the governor. Oh, and [state Sen.] Jimmy DeLeo, they asked about him."

Only Blagojevich has been charged with a crime, and it's not illegal to know a guy like Richie Urso.

The FBI didn't have to ask about Richie and the Outfit. Without Richie, there may not have been a Family Secrets case that sent three mob bosses to prison.

That's because in 1986, just three months after gangsters Tony and Michael Spilotro were murdered, Richie Urso was the victim of an Outfit shakedown.

It all came out in testimony by mob turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, and chronicled in the book "Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob" by my colleague Jeff Coen.

Nick's brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., and fellow mobster John Fecarotta were competing to squeeze Urso for payments on a juice loan from the 1960s. It wasn't even Urso who borrowed the money. The father of an Urso partner owed the juice.

Urso was growing wealthy by the 1980s, and the mob wanted a piece. Fecarotta demanded that Urso make Fecarotta's house payments. Frank Calabrese Sr. held a knife to Urso's crotch, also demanding cash, according to trial testimony.

By then, Fecarotta had botched the burial of the Spilotro bodies, leaving them in a shallow grave in an Indiana cornfield, allowing them to be found. Fecarotta's shakedown of Richie Urso gave Frank Sr. another reason to lobby Outfit bosses for a Fecarotta solution. "And that sort of put the nail in the coffin," Nick Calabrese testified.

Nick and Frank helped kill Fecarotta on Belmont Avenue, but Nick lost a bloody glove at the scene. Years later, the FBI used DNA from that glove to turn Nick Calabrese into a star government witness.

The Outfit usually doesn't shake down legitimate squares, but targets people who can't run to the government.

"My husband helped all of them," Joanne Urso said. "When people borrowed money, he paid for that. He was paying and paying all his life."

At the time of his death Richie Urso controlled a string of properties, including a South Loop building housing the Pink Monkey strip club, a Cicero property housing the adult bookstore Bare Assets and a Chicago Chinatown neighborhood shopping complex. But the crown jewel was the land near the jail complex.

Now City Hall has moved to take the property. According to public records, Joanne Urso owes Mutual Bank more than $9 million on that property and another huge lot at 6501 W. 51st St.

The city has offered her $7.1 million for the Little Village parcel. Her appraisers say it's worth $13 million. It would be worth much more if Cook County expands the jail.

"They [City Hall] thought I would sell it right away," she said. "But I wasn't going to just give it away. Now it feels they've decided to try and just take it."

Joanne Urso is a woman alone. Her clout died six years ago, on another woman's kitchen floor, with tuna salad in his mouth.

Once, Richie Urso was squeezed by the Outfit. Now his widow is getting squeezed by City Hall. It's a classic Chicago story.

The central theme is that there's nothing deader than dead clout. And now Joanne Urso has to pay for it.

Thanks to John Kass

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