Posted Jan 03, 2020
By Frank Donnelly | fdonnelly@siadvance.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Authorities weren’t the only ones interested in getting to the bottom of a mobster’s slaying last March outside his Staten Island home.
So were other wise guys.
Four days after Francesco Cali’s death, a group of Gambino organized-crime family members arranged a “clandestine meeting” on Staten Island, as they launched their own probe into the killing, allege documents filed last month in Brooklyn federal court in an unrelated racketeering, loansharking and fraud case.
And now, the attorney for Anthony Comello, the Eltingville resident accused in state court of gunning down Cali, 53, a Gambino honcho known as “Franky Boy,” wants the wiretaps of those mob conversations.
Lawyer Robert Gottlieb said at a conference Friday in state Supreme Court, St. George, he will file a motion seeking to obtain the details contained in those intercepted phone calls.
Gottlieb said there was an indication that mobsters “apparently” had gone to Cali’s home and were inside before police arrived.
That raises questions, he said, of whether the house, crime scene, the victim’s car or other evidence was tampered with.
According to a detention memo in the federal case, Andrew Campos, 50, who prosecutors identified as a captain in the Gambino family, and Vincent Fiore, 57, an alleged Gambino soldier, met on March 17 with multiple other high-level crime family members to discuss the then-unclear circumstances surrounding Cali’s death.
The memo does not detail where exactly on Staten Island the group convened.
Afterward, Campos and Fiore, of Scarsdale and Briarcliff Manor, respectively, in Westchester County, actively helped the Gambino family investigate the murder, the memo alleges.
The day after the mob gathering, on March 18, Fiore discussed the meeting and his investigation with his ex-wife, prosecutors wrote in the memo.
He told her he and Campos met with “a half dozen” people, said prosecutors.
Fiore also told her he had seen the surveillance video of Cali’s slaying and speculated on a possible motive “relating to a woman” who had been at the victim’s Hilltop Terrace home the day he was killed, the memo says.
Prosecutors do not specifically say who that woman could have been.
At Friday’s conference, Assistant District Attorney Wanda DeOliveira said Brooklyn federal prosecutors had provided her no details on the wiretaps.
She also said she believed the mobsters’ phone chats had “no bearing” on the state case.
DeOliveira said it would ultimately be the feds’ decision whether to turn over the wiretaps.
Justice William E. Garnett instructed Gottlieb to submit his motion by Jan. 17. Prosecutors must respond within two weeks.
Garnett ordered the parties to return on Feb. 7.
He said he plans to rule then on Gottlieb’s motion for the wiretaps, as well as a defense motion seeking a mental-competency exam of Comello.
The exam is to determine whether Comello understands the charges against him and can aid in his defense.
Comello, 25, was not produced for the conference.
The defendant is facing murder and other charges and is poised to present an insanity defense at trial.
In court papers, Gottlieb said Comello was “delusional” and didn’t intend to kill Cali.
Rather, the defendant drove to the victim’s house to affect a citizen’s arrest on the mob boss, maintains Comello’s court filings.
He believed Cali “held a significant status in a worldwide criminal cabal bent on the destruction of American values and the American way of life,” a defense motion contends.
That alleged criminal conspiracy group is commonly referred to as the “Deep State.”
According to the motion, Comello planned to handcuff Cali and deliver him to the military.
The two men began arguing, and Comello “shot Cali in self-defense” when the victim made a “furtive action” with his hand, allege the defendant’s court filings.
Garnett said he hopes to start the trial in late March or early April.
Gottlieb said early May might be more realistic considering the circumstances.
“I’m saying that with fingers crossed, Your Honor,” said Gottlieb.