N. Bergen suspends 2 in bet 'ring'

Thursday, March 27, 2008
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Two North Bergen school employees charged Tuesday with being part of an illegal betting ring run by the Genovese crime family have been suspended with pay, while a Kearny public works employee also swept up in the raids is still on the job, officials said yesterday.

The two North Bergen school employees - North Bergen High athletic director and wrestling coach, Jerry Maietta, 37, and social worker Ralph Marino, 52 - were suspended with pay yesterday morning in accordance with state statutes, said Board of Education attorney Joseph Ryglicki.

If indicted, their status would convert to suspension without pay and they would lose their jobs if convicted, Ryglicki added.

"It is important to note that there is no indication that their alleged activities involved any students or any other school district personnel," said Superintendent of Schools Robert Dandorph.

Kearny officials said DPW employee Kevin G. Murphy, 48, who was promoted to a supervisory position a month ago, remains an employee in good standing.

"Kevin has a job to do and we expect him to perform his job responsibilities," said Mayor Alberto Santos. "The charges against him are very serious and very troubling, but like any other citizen, he is entitled to have the charges proved against him in court and that doesn't involve the town of Kearny."

All three men were arrested, along with 42 others, in raids that spanned four counties, including Hudson. Authorities said the ring pulled in $1 million a month.

Murphy, the Kearny DPW employee, was hired as a street sweeper in the early 1990s, according to Mayor Santos.

"He performed that job very well. His reviews were very good," Santos said. "He's been fighting a very serious illness for the last year and he's been succeeding in that challenge."

Maietta, a North Bergen resident, was charged with promoting gambling, conspiracy to promote gambling, and possession of gambling records.

Charles Fahrenholz, of Jersey City, was charged with promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling, officials said.

Marino, of Cliffside Park, was charged with promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling.

Charles Fahrenholz, of Jersey City, who is retired, was charged with promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling

===========================

LOSING GAMBLE
Star coach, teacher, DPW worker in mob ring bust

Wednesday, March 26, 2008
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The North Bergen High School director of athletics and wrestling coach is among 45 people charged in a probe into a major illegal gambling ring with mob ties, officials said.

Jerry Maietta, 37, of North Bergen, the popular North Bergen High athletics director and coach, is charged with promoting gambling, conspiracy to promote gambling and possession of gambling records, in the investigation by the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office and New Jersey State Police, officials said.

The investigation into illegal gambling and money laundering targeted a ring allegedly controlled by members of the Genovese organized crime family. The investigation, which began last August, netted several Hudson County residents and eventually uncovered a large-scale drug distribution network, officials said.

The probe also resulted in the seizure of $5 million and five pounds of marijuana.

Maietta recently completed his 11th year as head coach of the Bruins wrestling team. In that time North Bergen has emerged as one of Hudson County's premiere wrestling programs, placing four athletes on this year's Jersey Journal All-County first team. He was the District 16 Coach of the Year this winter and led his team to the district championship.

North Bergen school district aide Ralph Marino, 52, of Cliffside Park, was charged with promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling, officials said. Marino, a quadriplegic, is a social worker. He was a North Bergen High School baseball star and was paralyzed while playing baseball in a non-scholastic game, said township spokesman Paul Swibinski.

"Certainly everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but it is a shame to see someone who worked so hard to overcome such a severe disability to find himself in this position," said Swibinski of Marino.

Among those charged was another educator, John Prato, 36, of Brick, a teacher at Freehold Regional High School.

Kearny Department of Public Works employee Kevin G. Murphy, 48, of Kearny, was charged with promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling, officials said.

One of the alleged gambling ringleaders, James J. Skinner, 40, of Hazlet, is a member of the Hudson County Carpenters Union Local 6, officials said. He is charged with racketeering, promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling, officials said.

Charles Fahrenholz, of Jersey City, who is retired, was charged with promoting gambling and conspiracy to promote gambling, officials said. His age was not available.

The drugs and gambling records were seized during execution of 24 search warrants yesterday and arrests were made in Bergen, Hudson, Monmouth and Ocean counties, officials said.

Authorities described a multi-tiered gambling organization with Genovese crime family figures at the top and a network of operatives at the bottom taking bets and making a commission on the take, officials said.

Bets were placed on "every conceivable sporting event," including college and professional, as well as horse racing, officials said. The wagers were placed by phone or Internet in the Dominican Republic, officials said.

The investigation turned up evidence of widespread street-level narcotics distribution of crack cocaine, powder cocaine, marijuana and prescription narcotics, officials said.

Those charged could not be reached for comment last night.

Journal staff writer Ned Winner contributed to this report.

Endless Task: Keeping Unions Clean

New York Times
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: February 10, 2008

For more than a decade, federal officials and court-appointed monitors have strained to clean up two New York-area unions, representing cement truck drivers and construction laborers, that prosecutors say were long under Mafia control.

Indeed, prosecutors once described the cement truck drivers? union, Local 282 of the Teamsters, as a ?candy store? for the mob that they say funneled $1.2 million a year to John Gotti, the longtime Gambino crime family boss who died in prison in 2002.

On Thursday, federal, state and local authorities announced one of the most expansive organized crime indictments in years, involving 87 defendants, including much of the leadership of the Gambino crime family. In the 170-page indictment, which was filled with nicknames like ?Jackie the Nose? and ?Fat Richie? and accusations of extortion and murder, was evidence that cleanup efforts of the Teamsters and the Laborers have fallen short.

The indictments charged that a trucking company owner, Joseph Spinnato, together with unnamed others, repeatedly embezzled money from Local 282?s health and pension funds. The charges detailed an enduring practice in which construction and trucking companies contribute less money to union benefit funds than is required, usually by underreporting the hours that employees work. While the scheme often operates with the complicity of union stewards, officials with Local 282 and its benefits funds were not accused of wrongdoing.

In a separate count, Louis Mosca, the business manager of Laborers? Local 325 in Jersey City, was charged with taking a $2,000 bribe to give someone a union card, a move often done to help someone qualify for a construction job or union benefits. Michael King, a shop steward of Laborers? Local 731 in Queens, was also accused of selling a membership.

Mr. Spinnato, Mr. Mosca and Mr. King have pleaded not guilty. Officials from Local 282 and the Laborers? union, which represents construction workers, brick haulers and asbestos removers, declined to comment.

Robert D. Luskin, a former federal organized crime prosecutor who is special counsel to the Laborers? International Union of North America as part of a decade-long internal effort to root out corruption, said the labor racketeering charges were not surprising.

?The fact is the dollars involved in the construction industry are so great and the opportunities at so many levels for corruption are so broad, that this is a problem that will never, ever go away,? he said.

Prosecutors say the unions that deliver cement and other building supplies have long been a magnet for Mafia involvement because mob officials know that if they delay deliveries, construction companies can lose large amounts of money. Those union locals thus become an ideal pressure point for extortion.

The Gambino crime family made Teamsters Local 282 a longtime fief, with three of the union?s presidents going to prison in the 1980s and 1990s for their links to organized crime.

In 1995, a judge approved a federal monitorship of Local 282, based in Lake Success, in Nassau County near the Queens border, after prosecutors realized that mob influence remained endemic.

Milton Mollen, a retired judge who helped run the monitoring program, said that more than 50 of Local 282?s officials and stewards were removed because of their links to organized crime.

?I?m a bit concerned about the indictment as far as Local 282 is concerned,? Mr. Mollen said. ?We think it?s been pretty much cleaned up and run democratically. The indictments concerned the benefit funds, and unfortunately we did not have jurisdiction over the funds.?

Federal investigators said that the underpayments to Local 282?s benefits funds were at least $500,000 and possibly far more.

Gordon S. Heddell, the inspector general for the United States Labor Department, said the indictments did not allege any corruption involving officials at Local 282?s funds, but he said he might pursue a further investigation of those funds. ?You have these health and pension funds where it?s easy for an organized crime family to embezzle and put pressure on union officials,? he said. ?Those monitorships have been very effective, but we still have to deal with organized crime. Organized crime is like a cancer. Sometimes we treat it and beat it, but sometimes new forms emerge.?

Herman Benson, founder of the Association for Union Democracy, a Brooklyn-based group that has long fought union corruption, said that in the past, union officials had often been complicit when trucking companies underpaid benefits. In general, he said, unions have safeguards to ensure that employers contribute the proper amount.

?There?s often a deal to overlook these things,? he said.

The indictment also accused trucking company officials of falsifying records by ordering Local 282 drivers to work without submitting papers showing that they were doing a union job.

The indictments were awkward for Gary La Barbera, the president of the New York City Central Labor Council as well as president of Local 282. Mr. La Barbera, who has helped lead the cleanup of that local, declined to comment, but an aide noted that the indictments did not allege wrongdoing at the local.

Mark Feldman, who was chief of the organized crime racketeering section for the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1995 to 2006, said the indictments did not allege extensive corruption by union officials.

?I don?t think this marks a deep erosion of efforts to root out corruption at companies and unions in the construction industry,? Mr. Feldman said. ?I don?t think this signifies anything horrible. You?re taking an antibiotic and it?s cleaned up almost all of the infection.?

On Friday, Mr. Luskin and other union monitors suspended Mr. Mosca, and Local 325?s executive board agreed to emergency supervision.

Mr. Luskin said he would investigate further, adding that he would not be surprised if the corruption was broader than what was in the indictment.

He noted that Local 325 had been temporarily placed into trusteeship in 1999 because of financial irregularities and undemocratic practices.

?For as long as we?re around, we?re going to have to fight a ground war in New York and New Jersey,? Mr. Luskin said. ?It?s like World War I. We take some ground and then we have to fight to take it back again.?

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has been under federal supervision since 1989, when a federal racketeering lawsuit named 27 Mafia leaders and all 18 of the union?s board members as defendants. The lawsuit asserted that the mob had controlled four Teamster presidents, including Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared in 1975 after pledging to regain the union?s presidency and end mob domination. As a result of the federal supervision, more than 250 Teamster officials and members have been removed from the union.

?These indictments make absolutely clear that you can?t assume that past prosecutions and trusteeships are enough to keep organized crime out of the labor movement,? said Edwin H. Stier, a former prosecutor who once headed the Teamsters? internal anticorruption effort. ?Unless there?s continued pressure from federal and state authorities, labor corruption is going to become very serious again.?

You know who ends up paying for this sh*t? We do.

I hope they all get max sentences.

Laborers union official snared in mob sweep

Saturday, February 09, 2008
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The business manager of a Jersey City labor local is among more than 80 people charged by federal and New York officials this week in a massive sweep they say also netted key leaders of the Gambino crime family.

Louis Mosca, 62, of Cranford, an official of New Jersey Laborers Union Local 325 of the Laborers International Union of North America is named in several counts of the 170-page federal indictment.

Mosca allegedly conspired with others to fraudulently obtain union credentials and access to a union job for Joseph "Fat Joe" Agate, 60, of Manchester, officials said.

Officials at the local, located at 311 Newark Ave., could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Thursday's indictment also refers to a development project in Jersey City where mobsters shook down a concrete contractor for more than $200,000.

The indictment referred to Liberty View Harbor, but city officials confirmed yesterday the project in question is Liberty Harbor, a massive project being developed by Peter Mocco, the former mayor of North Bergen, opposite the new Jersey City Medical Center.

According to the indictment, VMS Construction allowed the contractor to operate a portable cement-mixing truck at the Liberty Harbor site as long as he kicked back 60 percent of his profits to Gambino family soldier Vincent Dragonetti and his father-in-law, Nicholas Corozzo.

Dragonetti and Anthony Scibelli, owner of VMS, allegedly demanded additional payments of $6 to $7 per yard of cement from the contractor.

The federal indictment represents an unprecedented crackdown on mobsters living in New York, New Jersey, and in Italy. By the end of Thursday, 59 of the 62 people charged federally and 20 of 26 named in state court in Queens, were in custody.

Quote:

Perhaps if his parents had chosen a better middle name, Joseph "Joe Rackets" Casiere might not have gone down the bad road in life.

I'm not sure what makes me more angry:

a) Local thugs terrorizing residents for pocket change
b) Organized crime, corrupt unions/politicians raping businesses & taxpayers.

These Developers have the mafia shaking them down for bogus contracts on one side and the JCPD shaking them down for "traffic control" and "security" on the other. What a country!!!

Inside mob's construction 'shakedown'

Friday, February 08, 2008
By CARLY BALDWIN
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A Jersey City development project was named yesterday as a hot spot for racketeering and extortion in a massive indictment of reputed mobsters.

A contractor at the Liberty View Harbor construction site said he was shaken down two years ago by various associates of the Gambino crime family, according to the indictment handed up by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn.

The Jersey Journal, however, could not find a development named Liberty View Harbor. The U.S. Attorney's Office directed inquiries to the New York Federal Bureau of Investigation office, and calls there were not returned.

The contractor, whose name is being withheld by authorities because he is expected to testify, said his company built a portable cement plant at Liberty View Harbor construction site in Jersey City in April 2006.

The indictment alleges that VMS Construction allowed the contractor to work at the Liberty View Harbor site as long as he turned over 60 percent of the cement plant's profits to Gambino family soldier Vincent Dragonetti and his father-in-law, Nicholas Corozzo, a captain in the Gambino family.

Anthony Scibelli, who owned VMS, and Dragonetti demanded the contractor pay an additional $6 to $7 per yard of cement produced, the indictment claims. The contractor owned two other companies doing work at the Liberty View Harbor and was forced to make extortion payments from those as well, it's alleged in the indictment.

In indictment alleges the contractor paid more than $200,000 to the Gambino family because he feared their retaliation if he refused.

================================================

Feds aim punch at the mob
Indictment targets Gambino crime family leadership

Friday, February 08, 2008
BY BRIAN T. MURRAY AND GUY STERLING
Star-Ledger Staff

Federal authorities moved in on 62 reputed mobsters from New York and New Jersey to Italy yesterday, unsealing a massive indictment charging mostly Gambino crime family leaders with more than 30 years of murders, robberies, extortion and racketeering.

Calling the roundup one of the largest in a decade, Eastern District U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell in Brooklyn said mob leaders overseas were being hunted in connection with the 80-count indictment. It covers crimes from the 1976 shooting death of a Brooklyn court officer to six other murders, recent kickbacks squeezed out of a Jersey City waterfront project and the failed effort to build a NASCAR track in Staten Island.

"Today, we serve notice that anyone who aspires to a position in organized crime will meet the same fate," Campbell said.

"Today's arrests will be a major setback for the Gambino crime family, but it is a fallacy to suggest that La Cosa Nostra is no longer a threat to public safety," FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said.

The indictment covers what re mains of the New York-based Gambino family leadership not in prison for criminal enterprises.

Reputed acting boss John "Jackie the Nose" D'Amico was indicted on charges he led a large racketeering conspiracy. U.S. authorities also issued arrest warrants yesterday for two other key Gambino members, Domenico Ce falu and Frank Cali, describing them as the main contact between Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the United States.

Authorities told the Associated Press 29 people were being sought in Italy. All are members of clans linked to Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the Sicilian Mafia boss arrested in November. When Lo Piccolo was ar rested, investigators warned he had been working to mend ties with U.S.-Italian clans as part of a scheme to become Cosa Nostra's next "boss of bosses."

"We have cut short a dangerous connection that would have been the basis for new illegal trafficking," Palermo Prosecutor Francesco Messineo said.

The New York indictment charged reputed Gambino soldier Charles Carneglia with five murders, including that of court officer Albert Gelba, who was gunned down just before he was to testify against Carneglia on a gun charge. Reputed Gambino consigliere Jo seph Corozzo also was charged with multiple counts of racketeering, including cocaine trafficking.

But the bulk of the indictment covered extortion and conspiracy charges related to a Staten Island cement contractor, particularly his work on a Jersey City waterfront project and the NASCAR track. Identified only as John Doe No. 4, the contractor was a cooperating witness for five years and federal agents said they recorded his meet ings with accused mobsters.

The NASCAR project, which fell through last year, involved large amounts of fill being brought to the site in 2006. That triggered truck ing contracts controlled by the Gambino family, which also tried to control the extortion of dozens of construction firms, authorities said.

The NASCAR project also led to schemes to bilk labor unions by getting jobs and benefits for nonunion workers -- in some cases mob figures, authorities said. They said the cooperating contractor was shaken down on many other construction jobs as well.

Of the seven New Jersey men named in the indictment, Nick Calvo, 52, of Nutley and Michael King, 41, of Freehold were charged with extorting the cooperating contractor while he subcontracting for a New Jersey firm, Schiavone Construction. Authorities said they executed warrants and retrieved records from Schiavone offices in Se caucus yesterday.

Calvo and King, a union official, also were charged with defrauding a labor union by getting union cre dentials and a job for a nonunion worker. Another labor union official, Louis Mosca, 62, of Cranford, was charged in separate counts with conspiring with Calvo and Jo seph "Fat Joe" Agate, 60, of Manchester to get Agate union creden tials and access to a union job.

The indictment also charged Cody Farrell, 29, of Manalapan, Ronald Flam, 35, of Jackson and Joseph "Joe Rackets" Casiere, 72, of Toms River with being part of a $2,000-a-day gambling operation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Brian T. Murray may be reached at bmurray@starledger.com. Guy Sterling may be reached at gsterling@starledger.com.

Is Liberty View Harbor the same as Liberty Harbor.

Anyone who wants to can read the indictment below -- downloadable PDF -- from WNBC.

http://www.wnbc.com/download/2008/0207/15242429.pdf

It is huge!

Quote:

Ninety Mafia gangsters arrested in New York and Sicily

Times of London
February 7, 2008
by Richard Owen in Rome

Ninety Mafia gangsters from New York to Sicily have been arrested in what is described as the biggest crackdown on Cosa Nostra on both sides of the Atlantic since the "Pizza Connection".

Italian anti-Mafia police said that the main targets were "the heirs of historic Sicilian and American Dons" from the Gambino, Di Maggio, Mannino and Inzerillo families.

Thirty were captured in Palermo and the remaining 60 in New York, in a joint FBI-Italian operation codenamed "Old Bridge". All were allegedly involved in money laundering and cocaine and narcotics trafficking. The charges include racketeering, murder, extortion, and gambling and labour law violations.

Pietro Grasso, the anti-Mafia prosecutor, said that the arrests were part of the biggest joint US-Italian operation against the Mafia for twenty years.
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The arrests follow a two year investigation involving phone interceptions and surveillance, with Mafia meetings covertly filmed and recorded.

Italian police said the Mafia families targeted were ones who had recently moved to fill the gap caused by the arrest of Godfathers from clans in the Corleone area who had previously dominated Cosa Nostra unchallenged, after winning the brutal "mob wars" of the 1980s in which 1,000 died.

Bernardo Provenzano had ruled the Corleone clan ever since Toto Riina, the then Godfather, was arrested in 1993, but Provenzano was tracked down to a hideout just outside Corleone two years ago and arrested and his successor, Salvatore Lo Piccolo, was also arrested last autumn near Palermo.

Anti-Mafia experts said that this series of coups had left the way open for other clans once "exiled" to the US to try to take control of an increasingly leaderless Mafia structure.

Members of the Gambino, Inzerillo and other Mafia families, which had fled to the United States during the internal Mafia wars of the 1980s to escape death at the hands of the dominant Corleonesi, had recently returned to Palermo to "reconquer their old territory", police said.

Italian reports said the FBI had had two informers in the Gambino clan, named as Frank Fappiano and Michael Di Leonardo.In Palermo the arrested "Dons" included Filippo Casamento and Giovanni Inzerillo, a building entrepreneur and son of Totuccio Inzerillo, a notorious Mafia boss.

Police said Giovanni Inzerillo had made his "debut" as a Mafia boss at a Cosa Nostra summit held in August 2003 at the 'Al Vecchio Mulino" (The Old Windmill) restaurant in Torretta, a small village about twenty kilometers from Palermo on the road to Trapani. Called to discuss the "grand return to power" by non-Corleonesi clans, It was attended by fifteen mafiosi including Giovanni's cousin, Giuseppe Inzerillo and his uncles Giovanni Angelo Mannino and Calogero Mannino.

Reports said the plotters had had some inkling that their attempt to regain control of Cosa Nostra in the leadership vacuum might fail or be betrayed to the authorities. Giovanni and Giuseppe Inzerillo had been secretly recorded during a visit to their uncle Francesco Inzerillo in a Turin prison in which he warned them to "get out of Europe, not just Italy....You just can't stay here anymore, there's no future". He suggested they move to South America.

In the US the most prominent arrested mafioso is Francesco Paolo Augusto Cal?, also known as 'Frank' or 'Franky Boy', a member of the Gambino clan who is said to have acted as "the American 'ambassador' of Cosa Nostra to Sicily". Attilio Bolzoni, an expert on the Mafia, said that "many Sicilian Mafia bosses have flown from Italy to New York to meet him since the beginning of 2003, to do business, and to keep Franky Boy up to date on Sicilian affairs."

The Gambino family was formerly headed by the 'Teflon Don', John Gotti. The founder of the New York family, Carlo Gambino, was born in Sicily.

La Repubblica said the crackdown was "only the beginning of a vast anti-crime initiative put into action by authorities in Italy and the USA," and the first in a series of assaults against the "Cosa Nostra" 'families' of New York.

==================================

Thursday, February 7, 2008
Gambino family takedown; over 90 Members arrested

February 7, 2008 -- In a stunning show of force, federal authorities swooped down on more than 90 Gambino, Genovese and Bonanno crime family members early this morning, locking them up on an array of charges including murder and labor racketeering.

The 80-count indictment unsealed this morning also includes charges of racketeering conspiracy, extortion, theft of union benefits, mail fraud, false statements, loan sharking, embezzlement of union funds, money laundering and illegal gambling.

Among those named in the indictment were Gambino acting boss John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico, underboss Domenico (Italian Dom) Cefalu, consigliere Joseph (Jo Jo) Corozzo, powerhouse capo Nicholas (Little Nick) Corozzo, John Gotti Sr.'s brother, Vincent, and his nephew, Richard Gotti Jr.

D'Amico was not arrested. Law enforcement sources believe he's on vacation.

Charles Carneglia was charged with five murders, including court officer Albert Gelb in 1976, gangster Louis DiBono in 1990, armored car guard Jose Delgado Rivera in 1990 and Gambino associate Salvatore Puma in 1983.

Nick Corozzo was charged with murdering Robert Arena and Thomas Maranga, two drug dealers in Brooklyn, in 1996.

Richard Gotti and Vincent Gotti were charged with attempting to kill a John Doe.

According to indictment, the Gambino family profited through extortion at the NASCAR racetrack site on Staten Island and the Liberty View Harbor construction site in Jersey City, NJ.

In all, 25 Gambino family members were charged with various crimes.

This morning's roundup was the biggest in recent history.

"I can't think of a larger single day roundup of substantial LCN figures," said one source. "I just can't think of a day that had this many arrests. Probably none in the last 10 years."

"It dismantles the infrastructure of the family," the source added. "You can't say its the death knell because you dont know. It will still exist, to the point where it becomes increasingly difficult for the family to operate as it has in the past."

The investigation spanned more than three decades.

The takedown was part of a joint case by the Eastern District of New York, the FBI, the New York State Attorney General's office, and the Queens District Attorney, a source said.

sounds like a huge bust. Hope the DA's got a strong case and there are minimal crooked public servants in this case.

Big Mob Sweep Nets Gambino Hierarchy

New York Times
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: February 7, 2008

Federal and state authorities early Thursday began rounding up scores of accused organized crime figures on a series of indictments charging murder, racketeering, construction extortions and other crimes in the largest such sweep in recent memory, law enforcement officials said.

About 80 people ? among them the entire Gambino family hierarchy and reputed figures from the Genovese and Bonanno families ? are named in two indictments, along with union and construction industry officials, the law enforcement officials said.

By about 10 a.m., 52 people were already in custody, including the family?s acting underboss, Domenico Cefalu, and consigliere, Joseph Corozzo, the officials said. The acting boss, who prosecutors identified as John D?Amico, known as Jackie the Nose, was not yet in custody and several officials said he was believed to be on vacation.

The arrests are to be announced later this morning at a news conference at the office of United States Attorney Benton J. Campbell in Brooklyn.

The charges, which are being brought in United States District Court in Brooklyn and state Supreme Court in Queens, also include seven murders ? three dating back more than a quarter century ? along with racketeering, extortion and state gambling charges, officials said.

The arrests by the F.B.I. and investigators from several other agencies were coordinated with a sweep that netted dozens of accused organized crime figures in Sicily. Those charges are not directly linked to the New York arrests, but officials said they were part of a new American-Italian strategy aimed at severing the close cooperative relationship between the Gambino family and the Sicilian mob.

In addition to Mr. D?Amico, Mr. Cefalu and Mr. Corozzo, the 82-count federal indictment charges six Gambino captains, who serve as the family?s midlevel managers, along with more than a dozen soldiers, officials said. A large number of family associates are also being charged.

The construction extortion aspects of investigation, which began more than three years ago, focused on the trucking industry, which hauls away dirt excavated from major construction projects, officials said. Several union officials were also charged in a scheme to steal union benefits.

Among those charged was Anthony Delvescovo, a project manager and director of tunnel operations for Schiavone Construction Company, a heavy construction firm that has worked on major public works projects in the New York area, according to the indictment.

Four trucking company executives, from companies including SRD Contracting, Firehawk Enterprises, Jo-Tap Industries, Andrews Trucking and Dump Masters of NY Inc., were also charged.

The trucking firms were licensed by the city?s Business Integrity Commission, an agency which polices private carting companies and businesses that haul construction debris. The commission, which also had a role in the investigation, was expected to move to revoke the companies? licenses today.

The construction projects cited in the case include a Nascar track in Staten Island, where site preparation work was done but which was never completed because racing officials scuttled the plan in the face of community opposition, officials said.

Also the subject of extortions was the Liberty View Harbor project in Jersey City, the officials said.

The seven murders include five that prosecutors are charging were committed by one Gambino soldier, Charles Carneglia, between 1976 and 1990, officials said. The first was the slaying of Arthur Gelb, a highly decorated court officer who arrested Mr. Carneglia in a Queens dinner after noticing he was carrying a pistol. Mr. Gelb was shot four days before he was to testify against Mr. Carneglia in that case.

The last killing was an armored car guard, Jose Delgado Rivera, an armored car guard who was shot in the back during a robbery, the officials said.

The federal case, which was investigated by the F.B.I. along with the United States Department of Labor, the Waterfront Commission, the State Organized Crime Task Force, among other agencies, was based on hundreds of hours of secretly recorded conversations made by a construction executive who had gained the confidence of crime family members, officials said.

In the state case, brought by the office of Queens District Attorney Richard A. Browne, 26 people were charged with gambling, loan-sharking and promoting prostitution, officials said. Twenty of the people had been arrested by about 10 a.m., officials said.

The leadership of the family ? Mr. D?Amico, Mr. Cefalu and Mr. Corozzo ? family were all charged in federal court with racketeering conspiracy and extortion and, if convicted, face up to 20 years in prison on multiple counts.