MY WRITERS SITE: Update on Roger Touhy: In the 1990s I wrote a book about the gangsters Roger Touhy who was murdered by the mob in December of 1959. This information was sent to m...
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MY WRITERS SITE: Update on Roger Touhy
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Guns and Glamour: The Chicago Mob. A History. 1900-2000: Waitkus Family to hold open house at local landmar...
Guns and Glamour: The Chicago Mob. A History. 1900-2000: Waitkus Family to hold open house at local landmar...: by Kyle Garmes A Morgan Park home with loose ties to infamous gangster Al Capone will host an open house on Aug. 8, as family memb...
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How Close Was Donald Trump To The Mob?
If Donald Trump wants to be a serious candidate for president, we deserve to know more about his business with mass murderers whose plunder of public and private funds added up to billions.
Donald Trump is running for president. Many believed or hoped that the Donald’s latest foray into national politics was nothing more than a public-relations move, not a serious attempt to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But now that Trump holds the lead in national polls, as well as polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, it’s time to take his campaign seriously. Media outlets like Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal, which are covering Trump’s run as an entertainment story, not a news story, are making a mistake. If Trump wants to be a serious candidate for president, and has the numbers to back it up, he must be vetted like a serious candidate for president. A good place to start is to take a hard look at Trump’s ties to Philadelphia and New York organized-crime families.
Donald Trump’s Connections to Organized Crime
Trump was building his eponymous empire of hotels, casinos, and high rises in the early 1980s in New York City and Atlantic City. In both places, the construction industry was firmly under the thumb of the mafia. And in both places there are literally concrete connections between La Cosa Nostra and Trump’s lavish projects. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who has covered Trump for decades, has written a very useful list of questions for Trump. Many focus on his ties to the mob. In addition in his 1992 book, “Trump, The Deals and the Downfall,” author Wayne Barrett lays out a slew of suspicious dealings and associations.
The Atlantic City story starts with Trump’s purchase of a bar, at twice its market value, from Salvatore Testa, a made man in the Philadelphia mafia and son of Philip “Chicken Man” Testa, who was briefly head of the Philly mob after Angelo Bruno’s 1980 killing. Harrah’s casino, half owned by Trump, would be built on that land, and Trump would quickly buy out his partner, Harrah’s Entertainment, and rename the casino Trump Plaza.
Author Wayne Barrett lays out a slew of suspicious dealings and associations.
Trump Plaza’s connection to the mob didn’t end with the land purchase from Testa. Nicademo “Little Nicky” Scarfo (who became boss after the elder Testa was blown up) and his nephew Phillip “crazy Phil” Leonetti controlled two of the major construction and concrete companies in Atlantic City. Both companies, Scarf, Inc. and Nat Nat, did work on the construction of Harrah’s, according the State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation’s 1986 report on organized crime. In addition, Scarfo, whose reign as head of the Philly mob was one of the bloodiest in history, controlled the bartenders union, which represented Trump’s workers in Atlantic City, according to George Anastasia’s book, “Blood and Honor.”
One more link to organized crime lurks in Trump’s past Atlantic City dealings. He had aclose association with Kenny Shapiro, an investment banker for Scarfo. According to secret recordings of then Scarfo attorney Robert F. Simone, Shapiro was intimately involved with bribing Atlantic City Mayor Michael J. Matthews, whose term would end in 1984 with a conviction on extortion charges. On the tapes, in 1983, Simone, talking about Leonetti, states: “He’s a nice-looking boy…Nicky’s nephew, he can sit with the…mayor. Ah, and Kenny’s (Shapiro) got the mayor through this kid Phillip.”
The Connections Don’t End in Atlantic City
Trump’s association and business dealings with known mafia figures was not limited to his Atlantic City projects. In New York City, several of his buildings were built by S&A Concrete Co., a concern partly owned by Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family. In addition to this business relationship, Trump and Salerno were both represented by high-power attorney Roy Cohn. In his book, Barrett cites an anonymous source who confirms that on at least one occasion Trump and Salerno had a sit-down in Cohn’s apartment. Trump has denied this claim in the past.
How can the candidate who promises to secure the border and bring good jobs back to America explain having farmed out good-paying jobs to a bunch of illegal immigrants?
Is it reasonable to assume that Trump had no idea that S&A was run by Salerno’s Genovese borgata when Trump’s own attorney was so closely linked to that organization? After all, if Trump (who likes to point out that he has “one of the highest IQs”) is as smart as he would have everyone believe, how could he have been so naive?
Another issue that needs to be addressed in Trump’s New York operations is the use of undocumented Polish workers to demolish the Bonwit Teller building, which made way for the Trump Tower. Only a handful of union workers from Housewreckers Local 95 were employed on the site, the vast majority were illegal Polish alien workers, toiling under inhumane conditions, and wildly underpaid. Trump and his associates were found guilty in 1991 of conspiring to avoid paying pension and welfare fund contributions.
Two questions arise from this. First, how did Trump get away with using such obvious scab labor without raising the ire of local 95? More importantly, how can the candidate who promises to secure the border and bring good jobs back to America explain having farmed out good-paying jobs, legally entitled to American workers, instead to a bunch of illegal immigrants? When the rubber hit the road Donald Trump didn’t walk the walk, he lined his pockets and sold out American workers.
Is it possible that Trump was simply involved in an industry which in the early 1980s was so infiltrated by the mafia that he couldn’t help but have tangential ties? Could this myriad of associations, points of contact, and shared affiliations with known mobsters just be the price of doing business in that business at that time? Sure. And if Trump were just a private citizen, businessman, and reality TV star, he would be under no obligation to explain any of this. But he isn’t. He is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president of the United States.
Donald Trump Has Explaining to Do
As one of a handful of people within reach of the most powerful office in the world Donald Trump must explain why so much of his early career is peppered with appearances by powerful underworld figures. Had Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, or Scott Walker bought so much as a used car from a known mafioso, it would be front-page news. Trump bought a piece of land for $1 million from the son of Philadelphia’s former mafia Don, and used it to launch a gambling empire.
The major investigative news outlets in this country with the resources and wherewithal to seriously scrutinize Trump’s ties to the mob need to start doing so.
It isn’t only Trump who has a responsibility here. The news media, which is enjoying his playful romp through electoral politics, needs to wake up on this story. Trump isn’t just fooling around this time. He wants to play in the big leagues, and in the big leagues they play hardball. The major investigative news outlets in this country with the resources and wherewithal to seriously scrutinize Trump’s ties to the mob need to start doing so, sooner rather than later.
Former mafia members need to be interviewed. Transcripts of wiretaps and interviews with the major players in Atlantic City and New York crime syndicates need to be reviewed. The work of Barrett and Johnson, among others over the past decades that show Trump’s underworld connections, need to be re-examined. Gary Hart and John Edwards learned that a serious run for president exposes all the dirty laundry, Trump needs to know that truth applies to him, too.
It’s time to stop treating Trump as a sideshow. He is being treated with kid gloves because nobody thinks he can win. Everybody is simply waiting for him to implode under the pressure of his own enormous ego and unfiltered motor mouth. But rather than plunging his run into chaos, his racist ramblings about immigrants and undignified digs at John McCain’s military service have excited some supporters. They think he speaks truth to power. They think he is the only honest man in politics. And no degree of exasperation from level headed news people and party officials seems to tamp his populist surge.
Being a loudmouth bigot, the Archie Bunker of 2016 who says what people are too afraid to say, is working well for Donald Trump. But it’s time to hold his feet to the fire. This is a man who did a significant amount of business with mass murderers whose plunder of public and private funds added up to billions. What did he know about them? Maybe more importantly, what do they know about him?
We need to welcome Donald Trump to his new place in serious national politics with a cold, hard look at the crooks, conspirators, and criminals who peopled his early career. Either the Donald will attempt to weather such scrutiny, or he will disappear from the race under it. Either way, that scrutiny needs to start now.
Photo Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com
David Marcus is a senior contributor to the Federalist and the Artistic Director of Blue Box World, a Brooklyn based theater project.
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City pays family of Mafia Cops victim
By TOM HAYS
APIn this 2006, file photo, former New York City police detective Louis Eppolito, right, exits Brooklyn federal court with his wife Fran in New York. Picture: Louis Lanzano, File
New York - The family of a diamond dealer killed by a pair of crooked New York Police Department detectives - known as the Mafia Cops for moonlighting as hit men for the mob - has won a $5 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit.
Lawyers for the family of Israel Greenwald announced the settlement on Thursday in one of the most notorious police corruption cases in city history.
The family sued the city in 2006 after Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were arrested in Las Vegas, where they had retired, and convicted of murder and other crimes.
At a 2006 trial in federal court in Brooklyn, prosecutors accused the pair of being involved in the contract killings of eight people between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll of a Luchese organised crime family underboss.
While some of the victims were criminals, Greenwald was targeted in 1986 because the mob believed he was cooperating with the FBI.
There was evidence that Eppolito, who played a bit part in the classic mob movie “GoodFellas,” and Caracappa kidnapped Greenwald, stopping his car and taking him to a parking garage, where he was shot in the head and buried.
His body wasn’t recovered until 2005.
“Losing a father at a young age is tragic,” Greenwald’s daughters, who were ages nine and seven at the time of his death, said in a statement on Thursday.
“Losing a father in this manner, where he disappeared one day into thin air never to return, where there was no grave and no closure, is nothing short of horrific.”
Eppolito, whose father was a member of the Gambino crime family, wrote an autobiography, “Mafia Cop,” about his life as a police officer growing up in a mob family.
Plaintiff attorney Ben Brafman said that in 1985 before the killing rampage began, NYPD commanders had “clear, overwhelming evidence that Eppolito had fed Mafia bosses classified information.”
But after a disciplinary hearing, the officer was restored to full duty, the lawyer said.
A city Law Department spokesman said the deal with Greenwald’s family was “in the best interest of the city.”
In 2010, the city paid $9.9 million to a man who spent 19 years behind bars after new evidence surfaced that Eppolito and Caracappa had framed him in the slaying of a prostitute.
Eppolito, 67, and Caracappa, 73, are serving life behind bars. At sentencing, they insisted they were railroaded.
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Lucchese Crime Family Associate sentenced to 30 Years
By Max Pizarro |
An associate of the Lucchese organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (LCN) was sentenced today to 30 years in prison for participating in a racketeering conspiracy and related offenses, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Salvatore Pelullo, 48, of Philadelphia, an associate of the Philadelphia and Lucchese LCN families, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler to 360 months in prison. He was convicted in July 2014, along with Nicodemo S. Scarfo, 50, of Galloway, New Jersey, a member of the Lucchese organized crime family; William Maxwell, 56, of Houston, a Texas attorney; and John Maxwell, 63, of Dallas, of racketeering conspiracy and related offenses, including securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice, after a six-month trial before Judge Kugler in Camden federal court.
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Judge orders equipment seized in crime raid to be returned to Carmine Agnello’s business
BY KAILY CUNNINGHAM
CLEVELAND – The equipment seized in a crime raid at Carmine Agnello’s business must be returned, a judge determined Wednesday.
Agnello was arrested on July 15 following an 18-month investigation by the Cleveland Division of Police. He’s accused of theft, money laundering, conspiracy and corrupting sports, while defrauding a victim out of $3 million. He’s since been released on bond.
Agnello, the former son-in-law of John Gotti and member of the Gambino crime family, had his businesses, Eagle Auto Parts and Charity Towing, raided and the equipment was seized.
The judge said Wednesday that the court could take photos of the crusher, 3 forklifts and front-end loader as evidence and the equipment could be given back until the court finds otherwise.
The photos were ordered to be taken by the end of the day Wednesday and then arrangements would be made to return the equipment.
Agnello, his wife and an employee are also requesting nearly $30,000 that was taken from Eagle Auto Parts and the Agnellos’ home.
Cleveland police said they discovered Agnello was weighing down cars with dirt and sand when they were weighed as his scrap yard.
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Mafia Takes Bookie Biz Online: NJ Man Sentenced To Prison
The Genovese Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra operated an Internet sports betting ring, prosecutors say.
By ERIC.KIEFER
The bookie business may be headed online.
On Tuesday, Joseph Graziano, 78, of Springfield, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Newark federal court for his part in an illegal, online sports betting operation that was allegedly run by the Genovese Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra.
According to court documents and statements, Graziano was the principal owner of Beteagle.com, a website located in Costa Rica that was used to facilitate illegal online sports betting. Prosecutors have charged that along with another suspected conspirator, Dominick J. Barone, 45, of Springfield, Graziano carried out the daily maintenance of the website for the Genovese Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra.
Prosecutors are alleging that the operation was run by Joseph Lascala, 83, of Monroe, the alleged “capo” and a made member of the Genovese family operating in North Jersey.
As part of the conspiracy, members of Lascala’s crew were allegedly given access to Beteagle as “agents,” the digital equivalent of “bookies,” prosecutors stated.
These agents had the ability to track “sub-agents,” under them and the wagers placed by their bettors. The agent or sub-agent maintained a group of bettors (the “package”) and were responsible for those bettors. To place bets online, the agent or sub-agent issued the bettor a username and password to access Beteagle. This access was not given online and no money or credits were made or transferred through the website.
Associates of the crew paid out winnings or collected losses in person. If a bettor failed to pay his gambling losses, the crew allegedly used their La Cosa Nostra status and threats of violence to collect on the debts.
In addition to the prison term, a federal judge ordered Graziano to serve three years of supervised release and pay a $16,000 fine. As part of his plea agreement, Graziano has forfeited $1 million to the United States.
Barone previously pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme and was sentenced to 18 months in prison on June 16.
Charges against Lascala are still pending.
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Bonanno associate and mob rat Anthony Basile sentenced to 12 years in prison for aiding in 1992 rubout
BY JOHN MARZULLI
THEODORAKIS, ANDREW/THEODORAKIS, ANDREW
Anthony Basile, a member of the Bonanno crime family, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the 1992 rubout of a newspaper delivery foreman the mob feared would talk to authorities.
A federal judge denounced Hollywood’s glorification of the Mafia as he sentenced a mob rat to 12 years in prison for participating in the 1992 rubout of a New York Post delivery foreman.
The foreman, Robert Perrino, was whacked for fear he would cooperate with authorities probing mob activity at the paper.
The feds charged that Perrino was lured to a Brooklyn social club, where he was shot in the head and stabbed in the ear with an ice pick.
His remains weren’t found until 2004.
Prosecutors were asking the judge to sentence Bonanno associate Anthony Basile, 45, to life in prison for the Perrino murder with no credit for his two attempts at snitching. asile had tried to cut a deal after he and Bonanno soldier Baldassare (Baldo) Amato were convicted of Perrino's murder at trial in 2006.
The feds ripped up cooperation agreements after Basile was caught lying to the FBI and misbehaving in prison.
But defense lawyer Morris Fodeman convinced the judge to consider some helpful information his client had provided and the danger he will face for the rest of his life for ratting.
With credit for good time, Basile will be a free man in 13 months.
“I promise you I won’t let you down,” Basile, 45, vowed to the judge.
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Feds charge alleged Mafia capo
Federal grand jury indicts Merokean for extortion and loan-sharking
A federal grand jury last week charged Luca DiMatteo, 70, of Merrick, with extortion, loan-sharking and racketeering conspiracy. The indictment accuses DiMatteo of serving as an acting captain in the Colombo crime family, one of New York’s five Mafia families.
DiMatteo was charged alongside his nephew, Luca “Lukey” DiMatteo, 46, of Brooklyn, and another man, John Shields, also known as Scott Greco, 46, of Atlantic Beach. The DiMatteos extorted a business owner for more than 10 years, squeezing him for $100 to $200 every other week until he closed the business in June, said Kelly Currie, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The indictment covers January 2009 to June 2015. Uncle and nephew also engaged in loan-sharking and racketeering conspiracy, Currie said.
Lukey and Shields were also charged with running an illegal gambling club in Brooklyn, Currie said.
Luca and Shields were arraigned on July 16 at a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where Lukey was also scheduled to be arraigned on July 17.
A news release from Currie’s office described the elder DiMatteo as a long-time Colombo soldier who “for several years” has been acting captain of a crew of Colombo associates.
In a letter to the court, federal prosecutors said that a cooperating witness recorded 2011 conversations with Luca and Colombo members Joseph Carna and Vincent Manzo that indicate Luca’s status as an acting captain.
“We are committed to defeating organized crime,” Currie said in the release. “We will not tolerate the use of violence or threats of violence to extort local businesspeople, and we will shut down illegal gambling businesses in our neighborhoods.”
Diego Rodriguez, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York office, echoed Currie. “As alleged, Luca DiMatteo and Lukey DiMatteo picked up a check every couple of weeks from a local business for more than 10 years, but it wasn’t a paycheck — rather, they picked up a shakedown check,” Rodriguez said in the release.
Flora Edwards, Luca DiMatteo’s attorney, did not return a call for comment.
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The Prohibition Gangsters in Pictures: This Prohibition-Era Whiskey Cache Could Be Worth ...
The Prohibition Gangsters in Pictures: This Prohibition-Era Whiskey Cache Could Be Worth ...: Rachel Tepper Reddit user Hanshound may have stumbled on the find of a lifetime: a pristine case of Prohibition-era Old Overholt r...
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The Prohibition Gangsters in Pictures: This Prohibition-Era Whiskey Cache Could Be Worth ...
The Prohibition Gangsters in Pictures: This Prohibition-Era Whiskey Cache Could Be Worth ...: Rachel Tepper Reddit user Hanshound may have stumbled on the find of a lifetime: a pristine case of Prohibition-era Old Overholt r...
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Yakuza members accused in safe-cracking cases
By Tokyo Reporter
The suspects are believed to have been involved in 153 incidents with losses totaling 47.3 million yen
FUKUOKA (TR) – Fukuoka Prefectural Police last week announced the arrest of two organized crime members in a string of safe-cracking incidents that took place in Oita and Fukuoka prefectures, reports theYomiuri Shimbun (July 21).
Yoshihiko Tanaka, 43, and Shinichiro Misumi, 36, both members of the Dojin-kai, and four other suspects are under prosecution in Fukuoka for 10 cases of theft in which the damage totaled 19.6 million yen.
All six suspects have reportedly admitted to the allegations.
On March 3 of last year, the suspects are alleged to have broken into safes of a construction company in Fukuoka’s Higashi Ward and taken 5.3 million yen. The group is also accused of stealing 1.8 million yen from the office of a used-car dealer in Nishi Ward.
Since October of 2012, the ring is believed to have been behind a total 153 incidents with losses totaling 47.3 million yen.
Dojin-kai, Fukuoka
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The New England Mafia: Appeals court upholds ex-FBI agent’s murder convic...
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Two Texas Men Sentenced to Prison for Roles in Organized Crime Racketeering Conspiracy
U.S. Attorney’s OfficeJuly 30, 2015 • District of New Jersey(973) 645-2888
CAMDEN, NJ—Two Texas men who were convicted along with a member and an associate of the Lucchese organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (LCN) were sentenced today to prison terms for their respective roles in a racketeering conspiracy and related offenses, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
William Maxwell, 56, of Houston, Texas, was sentenced to 20 years in prison; his brother, John Maxwell, 63, of Dallas, Texas, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Maxwells, along with Nicodemo S. Scarfo, 50, of Galloway, New Jersey, and Salvatore Pelullo, 48, of Philadelphia, were convicted in July 2014 of racketeering conspiracy and related offenses, including securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice, after a six-month trial before U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler, who imposed the sentences today in Camden federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and the evidence presented at trial:
Since 1989, Scarfo has been a member of the Lucchese family. As a member, he was required to earn money and participate in the affairs of the Lucchese family. Pelullo was an associate of the Lucchese family.
In April 2007, Scarfo, Pelullo and others conspired to take control of FirstPlus Financial Group Inc. (FPFG), a publicly held company in Texas, by using threats of economic harm to intimidate and remove FPFG’s management and board of directors, and to replace them with people beholden to Scarfo and Pelullo, including the Maxwell brothers. Once the takeover had occurred, FPFG’s new board of directors named William Maxwell as “special counsel” to FPFG and John Maxwell as the company’s CEO, positions that they used to funnel $12 million to themselves, Scarfo and Pelullo through fraudulent legal services and consulting agreements.
The indictment also named as conspirators Scarfo’s father, Nicodemo D. Scarfo (Scarfo Sr.) the imprisoned former boss of the Philadelphia LCN family; and Vittorio Amuso, the imprisoned boss of the Lucchese LCN family. Five other defendants—Cory Leshner, Howard Drossner, John Parisi, Todd Stark and Scarfo’s wife, Lisa Murray-Scarfo—previously pleaded guilty to various charges related to their roles in the conspiracy.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Kugler sentenced each of the Maxwells to three years of supervised release and ordered them to pay restitution $14 million each. Scarfo and Pelullo were each sentenced to 30 years in prison earlier this week.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI in Newark, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Richard M. Frankel, with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing. They also thanked the U.S. Department of Labor-Office of Inspector General’s Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations New York Region, the FBI’s Philadelphia Division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for their roles in the case.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven D’Aguanno and Howard Wiener of the District of New Jersey and Trial Attorney Adam L. Small of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section.
This content has been reproduced from its original source.
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Israel Greewald’s Family Awarded $5 Million After Being Slayed By NYPD
by Suzanne Vega
After two long decades, Israel Greenwald’s family gains justice for his heinous murder.
According to the NY Times, Greenwald’s family settled a civil suit against the City of New York for $5 million on Thursday. Their lawsuit was one of many against the two NYPD officers who moonlighted as mafia hitmen in the 1980s.
Greenwald, an Orthodox Jew who was a father of two, was killed by NYPD detectives Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito in 1986. He was buried in a unmarked grave in a Brooklyn garage after he was lured there on claims of being involved in a hit and run.
It wasn’t until 20 years later that the family gained closure and the truth about what happened to Greenwald, after a government witness led investigators to the diamond dealers’ makeshift grave near Nostrand Avenue.
The former NYPD detectives are scheduled to go to trial in the fall in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. They were previously convicted of eight murders, two attempted murders and one murder conspiracy in 2006. Caracappa and Eppolito are serving multiple life sentences, while still receiving NYPD pensions.
The crooked detectives formed a partnership with the mafia boss Anthony Casso only after a few years of joining the police force. They agreed to kill and offer confidential information to the crime group in exchange for financial compensation.
Unfortunately for Greenwald, he was truly an innocent man, murdered because they suspected he had unintentionally tipped off the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for obtaining treasury bills, which he believed where legitimate. However, the bills had apparently originated with links to Casso.
In February of 1986 the two detectives tracked down Greenwald from a confidential police database, locating his home address, car model and license plate number. From there they pulled him over on a bogus hit-and-run allegation and brought him to the warehouse where Caracappa and another man killed him, with Eppolito acting as a lookout.
Caracappa and Eppolito also committed several other murders, including the killings of a Staten Island man whom they stuffed into a trunk, another man gunned down while changing a tire on his car and another who was left dead with a canary stuffed into his mouth after the detectives identified him as an informer, as reported by the NY Times.
The reason the city and police department were held accountable is because they had knowledge of the two twisted detectives’ connections to the mafia, but didn’t take an active approach in permanently dismissing them from the police force.
For example, in 1984 Eppolito was suspended after the F.B.I. notified the police department that he had given out intelligence files to the Gambino crime family. Originally the city had tried to prevent the lawsuit, but it was clear that they were responsible and could have prevented Greenwald’s death had they handled the reports appropriately.
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The New England Mafia: Law Enforcement Experts Weigh in on The Patriarca ...
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NJ mob boss who inspired ‘Sopranos’ dies at age 90
EDISON, NJ — A convicted leader of a New Jersey crime family long believed to be the model for “The Sopranos” has died. John M. Riggi was 90.
Riggi died Monday at his home in Edison, Corsentino Home for Funerals said. A cause of death wasn’t disclosed.
Riggi was the longtime business agent for Local 394 of the Laborers International Union of North America. But law enforcement officials say he also was a leader of the DeCavalcante crime family for more than two decades. He served prison time for extortion, murder and other charges.
Prosecutors claimed that Riggi continued to hold sway over the family’s affairs even while he was in prison, saying he ordered murders, received regular tribute payments and told associates how the family should wield its power over labor unions. But officials also noted that Riggi was known for supporting community groups and charities.
In September 2003, Riggi admitted his role in the 1989 murder of a Staten Island businessman that prosecutors said was supposedly carried out as a favor to John Gotti, the former head of the Gambino crime family. They said evidence at prior trials showed Riggi believed the slaying would improve the Decavalcante’s position among mob families.
“Sopranos” creator David Chase has said he drew inspiration for the HBO show partly from crime families including the DeCavalcantes.
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Mob rat with ties to real Bada Bing strip club beaten and robbed
By Rich Calder
March 23, 2015 | 9:05am
In a scene straight out of “The Sopranos,’’ a reputed mobster whose family owns the New Jersey jiggle joint featured in the hit HBO series was beaten and robbed for squealing on fellow wiseguys, court papers allege.
Suspected Genovese associate Anthony “Tony Lodi” Cardinalle, 63, was attacked Christmas Eve at his family’s club Satin Dolls, which doubled as TV don Tony Soprano’s Bada Bing hangout, according to Manhattan Federal Court papers.
The robbery and beat-down was likely “payback’’ for Cardinalle ratting out his criminal cahorts in a “Sopranos”-style trash-hauling shakedown scheme, his lawyer wrote in the documents.
Cardinalle “not only risked injury’’ by singing to the feds “but also was actually beaten and robbed in what was, in all likelihood, revenge or punishment for his cooperation,’’ his lawyer, Alan Silber, said in arguing for leniency for his client in the shakedown case.
A thug also came to another of the four New Jersey strip clubs that his family owns and told a dancer “she shouldn’t work there because Mr. Cardinalle was a snitch,” the lawyer said.
“It is obvious that the danger — including the possibility of future attacks — is ongoing for one whose cooperation was made public” by the media, Silber added in a Jan. 23 letter to the judge that only surfaced last week.
Cardinalle had been “assaulted by two men in a truck’’ after driving to his family’s strip joint — “the one that everybody knows because it was Bada Bing on ‘The Sopranos,’ ” said Silber.
The alleged Jersey Mafioso reveled in the notoriety surrounding his club’s fictional counterpart and mob boss Tony Soprano, who used a waste-carting business as a front for his illegal enterprise.
Cardinalle decorated Satin Dolls with posters of Tony Soprano actor James Gandolfini and hung a sign outside that said “Thank You Jimmy, Farewell Boss” after the star died in 2013.
But reel life turned seriously real when Cardinalle was pinched along with 31 others in January 2013 in connection with a multifamily organized-crime effort to control New York and New Jersey’s waste-hauling industry, authorities have said.
Cardinalle could have landed up to 40 years behind bars before copping a plea in December to racketeering and extortion conspiracy charges.
He then faced a recommended sentence of 21 to 27 months, but Silber argued for probation in the documents.
“The government has acknowledged Cardinalle’s cooperation as ‘noteworthy and significant’” in scoring convictions against at least two members of the mobster’s Lodi, NJ-based crew, he said.
Cardinalle ended up getting a slap on the wrist Jan. 29 when he was quietly sentenced behind closed doors to 30 days in jail.
He began serving his time Wednesday.
Manhattan federal Judge Kevin Castel also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine and $3,400 in restitution.
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