Genovese Crime Family Control of New York's Construction Projects Detailed in Court

An Irish contractor delivered a detailed account of the Italian mafia's involvement in New York's construction industry in a Manhattan courtroom last month.

James Murray, the immigrant builder, told the court how he climbed the ranks to success with help from the mob before crashing and losing everything. Murray addressed the court in a low voice as federal prosecutor Lisa Zornberg questioned him according to the Village Voice.

Murray had immigrated from Ireland in the prime of his youth twenty years ago.

"I was looking for work. I had an argument with my father, and I came to the States."
He dropped out of school at 13 the reason being, he told the court he had a difficulty reading. When he got to New York he started work as a carpenter before he started up his own business renovating homes. A fellow Irish man then helped him develop his modest business into a bigger operation.

To get the bigger jobs he signed up with the New York City District Council of Carpenters, pledging to build his projects with the union labor: "You can't work unless you're union," he reminded the court.

Things were going well for Murray, who called his company “On Par Contracting” and soon had 700 workers on the pay roll courtesy of the union and some shady background figures. Their extensive list of projects included the Times Square Tower, high-rises, hospitals and university projects. We were everywhere," he said. "We were all over the city, all over the tri-state area." And money was rolling in for the Irish firm.

By ignoring union agreements he had signed he increased profits by employing fellow Irish men illegally, who were just off the boat. He payed these young men $25 to $40 an hour as opposed to the $75 demanded by union workers. "We didn't pay the benefits," he said. "We paid the guys in cash."

This gave the company the upper hand when pricing jobs. “You could be the low bidder," he said. Construction expenses, he said, run roughly "one-third materials, two-thirds labor." It was "a big cost savings."

Murray also bribed every union official he could, shop stewards for leaving workers off the books, business agents were paid not to come snooping and the top union leaders were paid to keep everyone in line. More than $100,000 was given to District Council chief Michael Forde."He would help me get the shop stewards," explained Murray. The president of the Local 608 union, John Greaney got cash and tickets to the Super Bowl.

All the corruption and bribery took place under the eyes of the Genovese crime family. Which has had a significant stronghold over the city's building trade for decades.

One of the mob's biggest liaison to the construction business Joseph Rudy Olivieri proved to be Murray's right hand man. Olivieri worked as the head of the Association of Wall-Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of New York. The court heard that the pair looked after each other.

Murray loaned Olivieri hundreds of thousands of dollars but in return he ran interference when a court-appointed investigator of the union Walter Mack started raising questions about Murray's success.

In 2005 the same court official subpoenaed Murry to testify. When Mack ordered for the company to be shut down, Murray called Olivieri immediately:"I called Joe Olivieri right away," said Murray. "He said, 'Give me a couple minutes."

He cobbled together a rescue plan to appease Mack and the company stayed in business. When Murray was asked if he continues to cheat he simply replied “Yes”

The sordid relationships between Murray, the union and the Italian mafia handlers were a long kept secret. But Walter Mack's persistence and the follow up investigation by prosecutor Zornberg nailed Murray.

Murray's first indictment came in 2006 on fraud and money-laundering charges. He proceeded to flee to Ireland. Two years later after he was persuaded to return to the U.S. after the feds seized his extensive farm and other properties. He plead guilty and agreed to provide the evidence that led to the conviction of Olivieri, Forde, Greaney and seven others.

Olivieri was found guilty of perjury. He is currently out on a $500,000 bond and is facing up to five years in prison plus future prosecution for conspiracy and fraud.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk explained the necessity of the case. "Olivieri attempted, but failed, to mask his association with the Genovese Organized Crime Family and a dishonorable union contractor," she said. "The guilty verdict represents a dual victory: weeding out corruption in the New York City Carpenters Union and removing a crooked trustee of the benefit funds."

Thanks to Molly Muldoon

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Anthony Volpendesto Tossed from Court While Representing Himself

A federal judge ordered a defendant in a Chicago mob trial removed from the courtroom Thursday morning after the man threatened to have all the attorneys disbarred and loudly noted he did "not consent to any of these proceedings."

The disruption happened in the case of alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Sarno, who will soon stand trial with four other men, including Anthony Volpendesto, who created the disturbance and has been custody since his arrest.

Volpendesto is charged with racketeering for allegedly being part of a jewelry store robbery crew with ties to organized crime.

Volpendesto, who is not a lawyer, has filed numerous legal motions in the case on his own, which have advanced unique legal theories concerning his innocence or how the court has no jurisdiction over him. His attempts so far have not been successful.

Volpendesto referred to himself in court Thursday as "the executor of the Anthony Volpendesto estate" and repeatedly interrupted U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Guzman during a status hearing.

Volpendesto warned all attorneys in the room at one point, "either dismiss or disbar."

"I have no further business with this court," he said at another point, but continued talking anyway.

"I do not consent to any of these proceedings," he said, apparently unaware that his consent is not required.

The judge had deputy U.S. Marshals take Volpendesto away. He could still be heard chattering away in a holding cell as the door to the area opened and closed.

Volpendesto's talkativeness may come back to haunt him and some of the men on trial with him. He apparently made phone calls from jail after he was arrested for one of the jewelry store robberies, and prosecutors had indicated they will introduce recordings of some of those calls at trial.

Also on trial is Volpendesto's 87-year-old father, Sam, who is accused of helping bomb a video poker business in Berwyn in 2003 that was competing with a mob-sanctioned business. Prosecutors say Sam Volpendesto ran a Cicero house of prostitution and once had a suspected government cooperator beaten with a baseball bat, but he hasn't been convicted of either crime.

Guzman said he planned on having the younger Volpendesto brought over to the courtroom on Friday to remind him of the rules of conduct in court and work to obtain his cooperation during trial. If he refuses to come, deputy U.S. Marshals were ordered to use reasonable force to bring him.

Thanks to FoxChicago

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Boardwalk Empire Does Not Show the Real Uncle Al Capone

Deirdre Marie Capone isn't a TV critic, but she has some strong views on Stephen Graham's take on her great uncle, Al Capone, in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire."

"I have watched it," she tells me in a phone interview from her Florida home. "I think that Stephen Graham job does a great job. I don't like the character that he is playing at all."

"They had him cooking with his mother, the other night, in New Jersey. That never happened. They have him kidnapping people in New Jersey, which never happened.

"It's one more thing where they take his name and they create a character that is not really him," she says. "There's nothing I can do about it."


Well, there is something she can do, and Capone, the granddaughter of Al's older brother, Ralph, is telling her family's story in the new book "Uncle Al Capone."

It's a family story, including her memories of her great uncle (he died when she was 7). "I had my grandfather until I was 45, and I had Al's younger sister until I was 54, and I was very very close to them."

Her goal is to tell the story of a different Al Capone. "He would get down on the floor like a big teddy bear," she recalls. "He loved children."

It even includes recipes for some of her great uncle's Italian favorites.

She's not trying to say that Capone was just misunderstood. But she's still defensive about his line of work, saying there were few opportunities for Italian immigrants when he arrived in the U.S.

"There was no opportunity to be a doctor or a lawyer or a businessman," she says. "He could make money for his family.

"At one point, he ran over 350 speakeasies in the city of Chicago and he didn't have a fax machine and a cellphone... The only thing they could get him on is tax evasion, everything else is alleged."

The self-published book came out about a week ago, and is available from on-line bookshops, like Amazon. "I went round and round and round with publishers," she said, comparing that industry to the recording industry of a few years ago, out of touch with technological change.

That's why she went the self-publishing route, she tells me, although she's open to signing a publishing deal now that the book is out.

The 70-year-old Deirdre, by the way, is publishing the book under the name she was born with. "That is the name on my baptismal certificate," she says. But she's not revealing her married name, trying to hold on to a little anonymity for a while.

"It's going to be very hard for me to keep it private," she says. "It's going to come out."

But it's worth it, she says, since she had to tell this story.

"If I don't, who's going to?" she asks.

Thanks to Tim Cuprisin

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"Mama Versus the Mob" in Prohibition-era Chicago

Watch a couple episodes of “The Sopranos” or a few Martin Scorsese movies, and it becomes clear that rivaling mob bosses are a hallmark of the gangster genre. One thing these bosses almost always have in common is they’re male.

Vancouver writer Gary Corbin decided to present a new twist on this familiar formula by having women vie for control of the Chicago organized crime scene in his interactive murder mystery dinner show, “Mama Versus the Mob.”

Magenta Theater will present Corbin’s work Saturday and the following week at Rosemary Cafe in downtown Vancouver. Tickets to the show include a multicourse Italian dinner prepared by Rosemary Cafe owner Cheryl Cameron and her staff, as well as live music. Hadas Cassorla, who plays crooner Lola Falanova in the show, will sing Gershwin tunes accompanied by Steve Goodwin on piano.

Corbin’s show is set in Prohibition-era Chicago, and centers on dueling bosses “Smart” Alex Caponi (based on real-life gangster Al Capone) and George “Bugsy” Moroni (inspired by Bugs Moran and played here by Goodwin), as well as the women in their lives. Especially central is “Mama” Mia Mangia, Caponi’s half-sister who is secretly dating Moroni. Together she and Caponi run a restaurant and nightclub, and Mangia begins clamoring for more power.

The other women in the show, having recently achieved the right to vote and currently enjoying the freedom of the flapper era, also start to hunger for control of the mob. When a main character dies, everyone — women and men — jockeys for position.

Corbin said the show is really a comedic battle of the sexes.

Though Corbin has acted in murder mystery shows in the past, this is the first he has written. It’s also a first for Magenta. The theater group has done staged readings before at Rosemary Cafe, but never a full show with a themed dinner menu. Magenta plans to do another murder mystery dinner show at Rosemary in August 2011.

“I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Cameron, who has put together a special “Mama Versus the Mob” menu featuring Parmesan bread sticks, Caesar salad, three-cheese ziti with sausage or vegetarian marinara sauce and a dessert of biscotti accompanied by limoncello- and blueberry-topped ice cream.

The show is capped at 40 guests, so it will be an intimate, participatory experience, said director Bonnie Littleton, who lives outside Camas. Patrons will mingle and dine with the characters and be part of the action. At the end, audience members will decide not only who the murderer is but also who should take control of the Chicago mob scene.

“The audience will really feel like they’re part of it,” Littleton said.

Among the characters the audience will get to know is Mangia, the show’s titular Mama, played by Vancouver resident and Magenta regular Andrea K. Adams. She is one of eight performers from the greater Vancouver-Portland area featured in the program.

The show is scripted, but parts are improvised because of the audience participation factor. Several performers have experience with improvisation through Magenta or ComedySportz Portland, but it’s new to Adams. “You just really have to know your character inside and out, you have to have a backstory, and you can’t waver,” she said.

Co-star Martin Slagle, who plays Caponi, has participated in Magenta Improv Theater for about a year, but this will be his first time doing a scripted play-improvisation hybrid. “It’s something new and different, which I’m always excited about,” said Slagle, a Vancouver resident.

Slagle is most looking forward to seeing how the audience interacts with Caponi, the boss of Chicago’s South Side. “The audience interaction is going to be fantastic,” he said.

Thanks to Mary Ann Albright

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Salvatore Vitale Murders 11, Serves Only 7 Years in Prison

A Mafia boss who turned informant on one of New York's notorious five families - and pleaded guilty to 11 murders - has been sensationally sentenced to 'time served' today.

Salvatore Vitale, 63, immediately cooperated with the FBI and prosecutors after his arrest and imprisonment in January 2003.

He identified more than 500 gangsters and helped convict more than 50 - including his brother-in-law and former Bonanno chief Joseph Massino.

Today's sentence will mean that Vitale will have served around 18 months for each of his 11 murders.

It is expected that he will immediately enter the witness protection programme
.
'Quite simply, Vitale has likely been the most important cooperator in the history of law enforcement efforts to prosecute the Mafia,' said Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, of United States District Court in Brooklyn, when he meted out the sentence today.

Judge Garaufis noted that the criminal justice system was 'dependent on the cooperation of criminals in the prosecution of other criminals'. He added: 'This cooperation does not come without a cost.' The judge noted that he was under no illusion that Vitale had become a government witness for any reason other than self-preservation, noting that he did so only when he realised that the crime family had come to see him as a liability.

The judge said: 'It is unfortunate that law enforcement must, of necessity, obtain the cooperation of felons to address the pernicious crimes committed by organised crime,' the judge said. 'But without the benefit of cooperating witnesses like the defendant, the government’s ability to prosecute the secretive and rule-bound world of organised crime would be greatly impaired.'

In October 2004, information he gave to federal officers led to the discovery of three bodies in Ozone Park, Queens.

Vitale’s lawyers, Kenneth Murphy and Brian Waller, had pushed for the sentence to be 'time served'.
Vitale had been facing life in prison.

In a bid to put Vitale away for good, prosecutor Greg Andres read aloud letters sent to the judge from the wife and daughter of one of the victims. Robert Perrino was a Bonanno associate who was the superintendent of deliveries at The New York Post and who was slain in 1992. Vitale ordered the killing based on the fear that Perrino might cooperate with the authorities. Perrino’s body was not found until Vitale himself began cooperating with police. Perrino'd widow Rosalie wrote: 'As a result of Salvatore Vitale’s criminal inhuman behaviour, my grandson never knew his grandfather, and he and our granddaughter have grown up without this special man. 'Salvatore Vitale caused my own life to unravel and the colour in my life to drain away.'

Vitale alternately stared at the table before him and watched the judge as Mr Andres read the letter.
At the end of the hearing, the judge asked the people in the gallery to remain seated so deputy United States marshals could escort Vitale out of the courtroom. He left through the courtroom’s rear door, beside the judge’s bench, and did not look back.

It is not the first time Mafia informants have been given lesser sentences for information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of their bosses. Salvatore Gravano, an underboss for the Gambino family known as 'Sammy the Bull', admitted to 19 murders in 1991 in exchange for a lesser sentence and served just five years.
As part of his testimony, notorious gangster John Gotti was jailed for life.

Vitale, wearing a blue suit and silver pattered tie, twice dabbed tears from his eyes during the court proceeding - and exhaled sharply just before the judge read out the sentence.

The former paratrooper - known as Good Looking Sal' during his three decades committing countless crimes on behalf of the Bonanno family - read from a statement where he apologised to the families of his victims.
He said: 'I would say to them that I pray daily for my victims’ souls and I’m truly sorry. I stand in front of you, your honour, ashamed of the life I used to live. 'I disgraced my father’s name, my name, my sons’ name.'

Vitale operated at the highest levels of organised crime while a member of La Cosa Nostra, and knew many of the Bonanno secrets - including quite literally where bodies were buried.

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