Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
County Legislator, Frank Sparaco, Denies Organized Crime Ties
Rockland County Legislator Frank Sparaco on Tuesday vehemently denied any connection to organized crime and accused the Democratic leadership in Albany of being behind media reports about mob ties among his campaign donors.
"They have attempted to plant in the media the despicable and preposterous idea that somehow I am linked to organized crime," said Sparaco, who is running for the Assembly. "I wish to make the following perfectly clear: I vehemently deny any knowledge that political contributions to my campaign came from companies with alleged ties to organize crime," he said at a news conference outside Rockland Republican Party headquarters off Route 304.
He is running on the Republican, Conservative and Working Families lines to unseat 94th District Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, who is on the Democratic and Independence lines. The election is Tuesday.
The news conference followed Saturday's publication of an article in The Journal News about Sparaco's campaign donations.
An investigation by the newspaper of county, state and federal records showed that at least $11,500 from reputed Colombo crime family members and associates and their businesses went into Sparaco's campaign coffers since 2007, including donations to his county Legislature and Assembly races.
"There's not one contributor who has been proven guilty of one act of organized crime," he said.
He would not identify the Democratic leaders he blamed for the reports or answer questions after his statement. "This type of insidious racial politics" has been seen before in attacks against other politicians, he said, citing Geraldine Ferraro, Rudy Giuliani and Mario Cuomo. "I will not stand for it," Sparaco said. "I will bring an independent voice to Albany, and there are those that are petrified of that."
He said he had no relationship with his biological father, Frank Sparaco Jr., a reputed Colombo member who pleaded guilty to federal murder charges in 1993 and was sentenced to prison for 24 years. The younger Sparaco said his father abandoned his mother when he was 9 months old.
"In this country, unlike others, we do not tell people to live in the shadows and stay on the margins of society because of what family they come from," Sparaco said. "I am standing up today for the millions of children across this country that are a product of a broken home. Are we worth less? I say no."
Rockland County Republican Party Chairman Vincent Reda backed his candidate.
"We stand behind Frank Sparaco and we reject the media story orchestrated by the Albany Democrats, who have increased taxes by $14 billion over the past two years and chased families and small businesses out of the state," Reda said. "We can no longer afford that."
Reda said the Democrats he was referring to were those cited in an Oct. 21 report by the state inspector general. The report found Senate leaders, including Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn, and Gov. David Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, complicit in steering a contract for video lottery terminals at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens to Aqueduct Entertainment Group. In exchange, the report said, lobbyists and AEG officials pumped more than $100,000 into lawmakers' campaign coffers.
Requests for comment from the state Democratic Committee were not returned Tuesday.
"My candidacy is clearly a threat to those that represent the special interests, the status quo in Albany," said Sparaco, who lives in Valley Cottage. "So much so that they have generated these rumors to deter the good people of Rockland County from achieving the reform that they deserve ."
Diane Holland of West Nyack, who attended the event, said she would continue to support Sparaco.
"Frank is a man of integrity," Holland said. "I've known him for many years. ... He would stand behind me and I would stand behind him."
Thanks to Laura Incalcaterra
"They have attempted to plant in the media the despicable and preposterous idea that somehow I am linked to organized crime," said Sparaco, who is running for the Assembly. "I wish to make the following perfectly clear: I vehemently deny any knowledge that political contributions to my campaign came from companies with alleged ties to organize crime," he said at a news conference outside Rockland Republican Party headquarters off Route 304.
He is running on the Republican, Conservative and Working Families lines to unseat 94th District Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, who is on the Democratic and Independence lines. The election is Tuesday.
The news conference followed Saturday's publication of an article in The Journal News about Sparaco's campaign donations.
An investigation by the newspaper of county, state and federal records showed that at least $11,500 from reputed Colombo crime family members and associates and their businesses went into Sparaco's campaign coffers since 2007, including donations to his county Legislature and Assembly races.
"There's not one contributor who has been proven guilty of one act of organized crime," he said.
He would not identify the Democratic leaders he blamed for the reports or answer questions after his statement. "This type of insidious racial politics" has been seen before in attacks against other politicians, he said, citing Geraldine Ferraro, Rudy Giuliani and Mario Cuomo. "I will not stand for it," Sparaco said. "I will bring an independent voice to Albany, and there are those that are petrified of that."
He said he had no relationship with his biological father, Frank Sparaco Jr., a reputed Colombo member who pleaded guilty to federal murder charges in 1993 and was sentenced to prison for 24 years. The younger Sparaco said his father abandoned his mother when he was 9 months old.
"In this country, unlike others, we do not tell people to live in the shadows and stay on the margins of society because of what family they come from," Sparaco said. "I am standing up today for the millions of children across this country that are a product of a broken home. Are we worth less? I say no."
Rockland County Republican Party Chairman Vincent Reda backed his candidate.
"We stand behind Frank Sparaco and we reject the media story orchestrated by the Albany Democrats, who have increased taxes by $14 billion over the past two years and chased families and small businesses out of the state," Reda said. "We can no longer afford that."
Reda said the Democrats he was referring to were those cited in an Oct. 21 report by the state inspector general. The report found Senate leaders, including Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn, and Gov. David Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, complicit in steering a contract for video lottery terminals at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens to Aqueduct Entertainment Group. In exchange, the report said, lobbyists and AEG officials pumped more than $100,000 into lawmakers' campaign coffers.
Requests for comment from the state Democratic Committee were not returned Tuesday.
"My candidacy is clearly a threat to those that represent the special interests, the status quo in Albany," said Sparaco, who lives in Valley Cottage. "So much so that they have generated these rumors to deter the good people of Rockland County from achieving the reform that they deserve ."
Diane Holland of West Nyack, who attended the event, said she would continue to support Sparaco.
"Frank is a man of integrity," Holland said. "I've known him for many years. ... He would stand behind me and I would stand behind him."
Thanks to Laura Incalcaterra
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Gangsters of Harlem
For the first time ever, author Ron Chepesiuk chronicles the little known history of organized crime in Harlem. African American organized crime has had as significant an impact on its constituent community as Italian, Jewish, and Irish organized crime has had on theirs. Gangsters are every bit as colorful, intriguing, and powerful as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, and have a fascinating history in gambling, prostitution, and drug dealing. In this riveting, vivid documentation, Chepesiuk tells the little-known story of organized crime in Harlem through in-depth profiles of the major gangs and motley gangsters whose exploits have made them legends.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Joseph "Rudy" Olivieri, Reputed Genovese Crime Family Soldier, to Face Trial as Alleged Union Contact Person for the Mob
The mob-linked head of a powerful contractors group goes on trial Tuesday in a case expected to dramatically demonstrate organized crime's grip on the city's construction unions.
Joseph (Rudy) Olivieri is the last of nine contracting bigwigs to face judgment in a case that's seen District Council of Carpenters chief Michael Forde and seven cohorts plead guilty this year.
Authorities say Olivieri, 55, is a Genovese crime family soldier who headed the Association of Wall-Ceiling & Carpentry Industries. The group represents 160 contractors who employ thousands of workers.
The trial centers on Olivieri's group, which is a force in several unions, and his role in a plot to steal millions from the carpenters' benefit funds.
Prosecutors say he took orders from mob capo Louis Moscatiello, who ran the crime family's construction rackets in the city. Moscatiello was set to testify against Olivieri but died last year in prison while serving time for a 2004 racketeering case.
Prosecutors have massed a parade of mobsters, ex-union officials, crooked contractors and FBI agents to show how the mob infests unions, rips off their benefit funds and pockets kickbacks to let contractors use cheap, nonunion labor.
Reputed Genovese associate Joseph Rizzuto, ex-business agent of Operating Engineers Local 14, has fingered Olivieri as the mob's "contact person" in the union in the late 1990s. Rizzuto is set to tell the jury how Olivieri "threatened" him and summoned him to a meeting at a LaGuardia Airport hotel after he balked at putting Moscatiello's pick in a top union post.
Jurors also are expected to hear a 2004 recording of capo John (Buster) Ardito and several wiseguys identifying Olivieri as "a friend of Louis" with ties to longtime labor racketeer Vincent DiNapoli.
At a hearing yesterday, defense lawyer Brian Gardner tried to bar prosecutors from using sworn testimony Olivieri gave in a related civil case without warning him he was a criminal target.
Manhattan Federal Judge Victor Marrero decided Olivieri will be tried first only for perjury, one of five counts against him.
Thanks to Brian Kates
Joseph (Rudy) Olivieri is the last of nine contracting bigwigs to face judgment in a case that's seen District Council of Carpenters chief Michael Forde and seven cohorts plead guilty this year.
Authorities say Olivieri, 55, is a Genovese crime family soldier who headed the Association of Wall-Ceiling & Carpentry Industries. The group represents 160 contractors who employ thousands of workers.
The trial centers on Olivieri's group, which is a force in several unions, and his role in a plot to steal millions from the carpenters' benefit funds.
Prosecutors say he took orders from mob capo Louis Moscatiello, who ran the crime family's construction rackets in the city. Moscatiello was set to testify against Olivieri but died last year in prison while serving time for a 2004 racketeering case.
Prosecutors have massed a parade of mobsters, ex-union officials, crooked contractors and FBI agents to show how the mob infests unions, rips off their benefit funds and pockets kickbacks to let contractors use cheap, nonunion labor.
Reputed Genovese associate Joseph Rizzuto, ex-business agent of Operating Engineers Local 14, has fingered Olivieri as the mob's "contact person" in the union in the late 1990s. Rizzuto is set to tell the jury how Olivieri "threatened" him and summoned him to a meeting at a LaGuardia Airport hotel after he balked at putting Moscatiello's pick in a top union post.
Jurors also are expected to hear a 2004 recording of capo John (Buster) Ardito and several wiseguys identifying Olivieri as "a friend of Louis" with ties to longtime labor racketeer Vincent DiNapoli.
At a hearing yesterday, defense lawyer Brian Gardner tried to bar prosecutors from using sworn testimony Olivieri gave in a related civil case without warning him he was a criminal target.
Manhattan Federal Judge Victor Marrero decided Olivieri will be tried first only for perjury, one of five counts against him.
Thanks to Brian Kates
Sam Giancana's Life Could become TV Series
Legendary Chicago mobster Sam Giancana could soon get the TV series treatment. Ted Field and his Radar Pictures shingle have pacted with Dimitri Logothetis and Nicholas Celozzi to turn Giancana's life story into a drama. Radar, Logothetis and Celozzi are looking first for international financing and distribution before turning their attention to finding a U.S. partner. A deal is imminent, the trio said.
Giancana ran the Chicago mob -- known as "the Outfit" -- from the 1950s to the 1970s, when he was forced out of power and exiled to Mexico. Upon his return, Giancana became an informant for the FBI but was assassinated in his home. Giancana's murder has never been solved.
Giancana was also a widower raising three daughters. Celozzi secured Giancana's life rights from daughters Bonnie and Francine, who also happen to be Celozzi's cousins.
Logothetis and Celozzi will write and exec produce. The duo's credits include recent Lifetime telepic "The Lost Angel."
Logothetis' other credits include "Code Name Eternity," "Dark Realm" and "Stephen King's Sleepwalkers." He also directed HBO's "Body Shot." Celozzi has written indie features such as "Quiet Kill" and "A Fine Step."
Giancana story also hits home for Field, who formerly owned the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as Kaiser Broadcasting and Interscope Communications. As a producer, Field was behind "The Invention of Lying," "Jumanji," "The Last Samurai" and "Runaway Bride."
Thanks to Michael Schneider
Giancana ran the Chicago mob -- known as "the Outfit" -- from the 1950s to the 1970s, when he was forced out of power and exiled to Mexico. Upon his return, Giancana became an informant for the FBI but was assassinated in his home. Giancana's murder has never been solved.
Giancana was also a widower raising three daughters. Celozzi secured Giancana's life rights from daughters Bonnie and Francine, who also happen to be Celozzi's cousins.
Logothetis and Celozzi will write and exec produce. The duo's credits include recent Lifetime telepic "The Lost Angel."
Logothetis' other credits include "Code Name Eternity," "Dark Realm" and "Stephen King's Sleepwalkers." He also directed HBO's "Body Shot." Celozzi has written indie features such as "Quiet Kill" and "A Fine Step."
Giancana story also hits home for Field, who formerly owned the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as Kaiser Broadcasting and Interscope Communications. As a producer, Field was behind "The Invention of Lying," "Jumanji," "The Last Samurai" and "Runaway Bride."
Thanks to Michael Schneider
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