So who was from Jersey City that got arrested?

Indictments in biggest New York/New Jersey Mafia bust read like organized crime manuals

THURSDAY, 20 JANUARY 2011 JERRY DEMARCO

A slew of witnesses and tapes secretly made during high-level mob meetings led to the arrests of wiseguys with names like "JoJo," "Roc," "Jack the Whack," "Johnny Bandana," "Vinny Carwash" and ?the Claw? today, in the largest Mafia roundup in the history of the New York/New Jersey area.

Federal prosecutors cut the organizations off at the knees, dismantling organizations that had run wild for decades -- stealing everything from electronics to cigarettes, carrying out hits and extorting honest businessmen who paid up so they wouldn?t have their kneecaps broken or businesses destroyed.

In one case, the government said, two men were killed in a bar after an argument over a spilled drink.

Nearly 130 members and associates of seven Mafia organizations -- including the New Jersey-based Decavalcante Crime Family -- are charged with murder, extortion, theft and a host of other federal crimes stretching back nearly 30 years.

In New Jersey, 15 mobsters and associates are charged with taking over several unions and extorting its members -- including taking the annual Christmas bonuses that longshoremen at Port Newark and Port Elizabeth receive from shipping companies at Christmas.

"We have 17 arrests, including one surrender, in towns across Northern and Western New Jersey,including Kenilworth, Basking Ridge, Union, Roselle Park, Flemington, Kearny, West Orange, East Hanover, North Plainfield, Boonton, West Orange, Edison, and Glen Gardner," a New Jersey FBI agent told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this morning.

Genovese made-man Stephen Depiro ran the Christmas rip-off, and conspired with associate Nunzio LaGrasso, vice-president of ILA Local 1478 in Newark, to extort the union?s members, one indictment says.

Crime-family members also shook down a concrete contractor working on Liberty View Harbor in Jersey City, threatening to seriously hurt him and his business if he didn?t pay up, the government says. The same was done to other businessmen in Manhattan, Staten Island and New Jersey, the indictments allege.

?According to the charges unsealed today, organized crime still has a grip on the New Jersey waterfront," U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said. "Workers should be free to pursue an honest living without being worried that their own union representatives will shake them down.

"Our ports and those who work there play vital roles in our region?s economy and security. Paying tribute to the mob is not an acceptable cost of doing business in New Jersey.?

Federal prosecutors have gathered a roster of victims willing to tell their stories. They also say they have hundreds of hours of recorded conversations, some taped by wired participants of crime family meetings.

"Some believe organized crime is a thing of the past; unfortunately, there are still people who extort, intimidate, and victimize innocent Americans,? said said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. ?The costs legitimate businesses are forced to pay are ultimately borne by American consumers nationwide."

One indictment charges 39 defendants, including the entire leadership of the Colombo family not currently in prison -- street boss Andrew Russo, acting underboss Benjamin Castellazzo and consigliere Richard Fusco -- as well as four of the crime family's official captains and eight of its soldiers.

Russo is charged with the 1993 murder of Colombo family underboss Joseph Scopo as the victim sat in a car parked outside his house in Ozone Park, Queens.

The indictments unsealed today read like primers on the businesses of the Colombos, as well as the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Luchese crime families, among others, explaining members? roles in each enterprise and the workings of the La Costra Nostra ?Commission,? a ruling class of the leaders of each family.

Taken together, the indictments lay out what for many has seemed TV or film myth but, in fact, is reality:

The head of each family -- the ?boss? -- is assisted by an ?underboss? and a counselor, or ?consigliore,? most of the indictments begin. With their help, the boss sets policies, resolves disputes, protected and disciplined the ?soldiers? and ?associates? and collected boatloads of cash. Whenever any of the administrators was sick or locked up, an ?acting? administrator would take care of business -- much like the government.

Below them are ?crews,? also known as ?regimes? and ?decinas,? each headed by a ?captain,? also known as a ?skipper,? ?caporegime,? or ?capodecina.?

?The captain was responsible for supervising the criminal activities of his crew and providing the crew with support and protection,? most of the indictments state. ?In return, the captain often received a share of the crew?s earnings.?

True to reputed form, underlings are referred to as ?goldfields? or ?wiseguys,? or as people who?d been ?straightened out? or who?d gotten their ?button,? the government says.

There are also ?associates,? who aren?t made members of a family but received protection in order to commit crimes.

Numbers of made members are limited. To make your bones, you have to be nominated by a current family member. Your name is then circulated among the other families for their approval or rejection -- much the way New Jersey?s Senate chooses judges.

If no one objects, a secret induction ceremony is held. The applicant takes a blood oath of ?allegiance for life to the crime family above all else, even the associate?s own family; swore, on penalty of death, never to reveal the crime family?s existence, criminal activities and other secrets, and swore to follow all orders issued by the crime boss, including swearing to commit murder if the boss directed it,? the indictments say.

The ?principal purpose? of each enterprise the government say, is to make lots of money, by whatever means necessary -- be it murder, loansharking, extortion, breaking into stores and stealing electronics in Delaware to be sold in the New York area, setting up and operating bacarat and other gambling operations, or distributing anything from pot to coke to Ecstasy.

Federal prosecutors said more than 110 of the 127 charged were arrested by, among others, New Jersey State Police and U.S. Marshals. All have court dates in various districts, from Rhode Island to Delaware, and in Newark.

"Today's arrests and charges mark an important step forward in disrupting La Cosa Nostra's illegal activities," said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. "This largest single-day operation against La Cosa Nostra sends the message that our fight against traditional organized crime is strong, and our commitment is unwavering.

?As we've seen for decades, Mafia operations can negatively impact our economy -- not only through a wide array of fraud schemes but also through the illegal imposition of mob ?taxes? at our ports, in our construction industries, and on our small businesses,? he added.

?The violence outlined in these indictments, and perpetrated across decades, shows the lengths to which these individuals are willing to go to control their criminal enterprises and intimidate others,? Holder said.

Those charged also include longtime crime family administrators -- among them, Luigi Manocchio, 83, the former boss of the New England LCN; Andrew Russo, 76, street boss of the Colombo family; Benjamin Castellazzo, 73, acting underboss of the Colombo family; Richard Fusco, 74, consigliere of the Colombo family; Joseph Corozzo, 69, consigliere of the Gambino family; and Bartolomeo Vernace, 61, a member of the Gambino family administration.

A 53-count superseding indictment filed in Newark federal court charges Depiro and three Genovese associates ? LaGrasso, Richard Dehmer, and Albert Cernadas, former President of International Longshoremen?s Association (?ILA?) Local 1235 and former ILA Executive Vice-President ? with racketeering conspiracy, extortion, bookmaking, loansharking and illegal gambling, among other counts.

Seven other defendants, including Thomas Leonardis, the President of ILA Local 1235 and ILA Representative; Robert Ruiz, the Delegate of ILA Local 1235 and ILA Representative; and Vincent Aulisi, former President of ILA Local 1235, are charged with extorting ILA members. The indictment also includes bookmaking and gambling charges against four additional defendants.

A separate indictment unsealed today in Brooklyn federal court charges that Patrick Cicalese, Robert Moreno, and Manuel Salgado ? ILA members on the New Jersey piers ? perjured themselves while testifying before a grand jury in New York.

Also arrested was a Long Island cop accused of looking the other way while illegal card games were being played at a Westbury auto body shop.

The cases were variously investigated by the FBI's New York and Newark Field Offices, and the Boston Division's Providence Resident Agency; the Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations; the New York City Police Department; the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office; the U.S. Secret Service; the Suffolk County Police Department; the Rhode Island State Police; and the Providence Police Department.

Federal prosecutors said they also received help from the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations; the U.S. Marshals Service in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York; the Monmouth CountyProsecutor's Office; the New York State Police; the New Jersey State Police; the New Jersey Department of Corrections; the U.S. Army-Ft. Hamilton; and the Italian National Police.



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Tony Soprano Ducks FBI Mafia Mob Sweep

Calvin Eaves
Spoof Times
1/20/2011

As the FBI closed in on Mafia kingpins in New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island this morning, mob boss Tony Soprano slipped out of town and was last seen heading out to sea on his 40' Bayliner Avanti aptly named "Stugats" (testicles). This was the same boat that Soprano took his friend out on to whack him and dump the body out at sea. FBI agents have been questioning Tony's son, Anthony Junior, and have been led to believe that Tony Soprano was somewhere off of Sandy Hook and attempting to make a run for Long Island where several Mafia mob associates have pledged to help him.

US Attorney General Eric Holder remains confident he will have Tony Soprano brought into custody by the end of the day. Various Coast Guard assets have joined in the search.

Tony's wife Carmela and his daughter Meadow have been in the witness protection program for several years after turning State's evidence in a failed attempt to put Tony Soprano behind bars. It appears the the leadership of the New Jersey Mafia is now left to Anthony Junior, but it is widely believed that several other mob families have put out a contract on him and it is not felt that the young and inexperienced son has any chance of avoiding getting whacked.


From Wikipedia:

Tony was born on August 24, 1959, to Livia and "Johnny Boy" Soprano. He grew up living with his mother, father, and two sisters Janice and Barbara in the Ironbound in Newark, New Jersey. His father was always involved in crime and Tony recalls some of his activities in flashbacks on the show.

Young Tony has been portrayed by several actors. Bobby Boriello played Tony in the episode "Down Neck" in which Tony recalls many childhood events relating to his childhood realization that his father was involved in organized crime, including his recollection of father's relationship with his older sister, Janice, and his use of her as a cover for attending meetings with criminal associates at a children's amusement park. At the time, Tony thought Janice was his father's favorite child. In therapy, when asked to remember happy childhood memories about his mother, Tony struggled to come up with any, eventually recalling that he witnessed his father falling down the stairs, causing the whole family to laugh, even his mother; he later described his mother as a cruel, joyless woman who wore his father down "to a little nub". Tony also has a distant relationship with Janice because she is always asking him for money and once tried to sell Livia's house by herself. Tony also ended up having to dispose of the body of her re-aquainted boyfriend Richie Aprile, after Janice killed him.

Tony went to high school with Artie Bucco and Davey Scatino and remained friends with them into later life. He played baseball and football, and according to Sal Bonpensiero, he nearly made All-County. In high school he met his future bride, Carmela DeAngelis. Tony was also close to his cousin Tony Blundetto, and neighborhood kids used to call them Tony Uncle-Al and Tony Uncle-Johnny after their fathers to tell them apart.

In their teenage years, the two Tonys spent summers at their Uncle Pat Blundetto's farm ? Pat was a soldier in the DiMeo organization. Blundetto was arrested for his part in a hijacking when the two Tonys were young men. Tony was supposed to join Blundetto on the job but failed to because of a panic attack; at the time, he told people he'd been attacked by a couple of "mulinyans" (aka: black men) and injured. Tony also attended Seton Hall University for a semester and a half before dropping out, to pursue a life of crime.

Tony was part of an unofficial crew of young criminals consisting of Silvio Dante, Ralph Cifaretto and Jackie Aprile, Sr. Tony gained notoriety in the DiMeo crime family by robbing a card game run by Michele "Feech" La Manna along with Silvio and Jackie. From then on, he was on a fast track to becoming a made man. He committed his first murder at the age of 23 on Labor Day weekend in 1982, killing a small-time bookie named Willie Overall. In season one Tony states that he knew Mafia boss John Gotti in the 1980s, but he may have been joking.

His father shepherded Tony through his ascendancy until his death in 1986 from emphysema. When he died, Johnny Boy had risen to the level of captain of his own crew ? as had his brother Junior. Junior took over the paternal role and continued to advise and assist Tony. Tony remembers having to buy expensive dinners for Richie Aprile as a newly made man. Soldiers from Johnny Boy's crew, Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero and Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri, passed their loyalty on to Tony after Johnny Boy died, Tony then became acting capo of his father's old crew in 1986, making him the youngest capo in the family, at only 27. He was elevated to permanent capo in the late-eighties. His old friend Silvio Dante also joined him as a soldier in his crew.

By 1995, Tony was a well-respected caporegime in the organization when the boss of the family, Ercoli "Eckley" DiMeo, was sent to prison. Tony's longtime friend and fellow captain Giacomo "Jackie" Aprile, Sr. took on the role of acting boss in December 1995. With DiMeo in prison, Aprile became the official "Street Boss" of the family.

Under Jackie's rule, the DiMeo Family was peaceful and prosperous until 1998, when Jackie was diagnosed with intestinal cancer; afterward, the family slowly descended into turmoil. With Jackie in and out of the hospital, and as such not able to fully run the family, Tony began to take on many of his duties, much to his Uncle Junior's chagrin.

For a time in early 1999, Jackie seemed cured and was back on the street as boss and the family's woes were eased. By late spring, however, he was back in the hospital and had begun chemotherapy treatments. With Tony's role in the family's operation increasing and disagreements including Tony thwarting Junior's plot to kill "Little Pussy" Malanga in Artie Bucco's restaurant, tensions between Tony and Uncle Junior rose and reached an all-time high as Jackie's condition turned for the worse.

With Jackie's death in mid-1999, a crisis emerged as to who would run the family, and the soldiers and other captains began to prepare for all-out war within the family, but Tony brought a quick end to the conflict by making Junior the official boss of the family. Junior would unknowingly act as the lightning rod for the feds, while Tony would run the family from behind the scenes as a de facto boss starting in 2000.

Tony's grandfather, Corrado Soprano Sr., was a master stone mason who emigrated from Avellino, Italy in 1910. He helped to build a church in Tony's old neighborhood in Newark that Tony has taken his children to, so he can tell them about their heritage, and the value of hard work. Tony also recalls that when he was only 13 his father would let him play around on the construction sites he ran, even driving heavy machinery, such as backhoes and diggers.

Did the Federali tip off the local Hudson county politicians. I am surprised that many city governments in Hudson county are operating today.

F.B.I. and Police Arrest More Than 100 in Mob Sweep

New York Times
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: January 20, 2011

In an unprecedented assault against seven mob families in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, the F.B.I. and local authorities began arresting close to 130 people on Thursday on charges including murder, racketeering and extortion, people briefed on the arrests said.

The sweep began before dawn, and the targets ranged from reputed small-time book makers and crime-family functionaries to six reputed senior mob figures from three crime families, including the entire current leadership of the Colombo crime family, according to several people briefed on the arrests. Among those charged, some of the people said, were roughly 30 made members of New York?s five crime families and the families in New Jersey and New England, along with scores of mob associates and several union officials.

The arrests, including one expected in Italy, were based on 16 unrelated indictments handed up in federal courts in four jurisdictions, several of the people said. Taken together, they amounted to the largest such sweep of organized crime figures conducted in recent history by federal authorities.

?Early this morning, F.B.I. agents along with our law enforcement partners began arresting over 100 organized crime members for various criminal charges,? Diego Rodriguez, the special agent in charge of the criminal division in the F.B.I.?s New York office, said in a brief statement.

Several men ? all described as made crime family members ? were charged in five murders, including a 1981 double homicide over a spilled drink in the Shamrock Bar in Queens, and the killing of a man and his dog during a home invasion robbery, one of the people said. Others were charged with selections from a full menu of mob crimes: racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking, arson, drug trafficking, money laundering and gambling, as well as labor-racketeering crimes in two sectors that officials say remain under the mob?s sway: the construction industry and the waterfront. Some of the crimes were alleged to occur over decades.

The arrests were expected to be announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. at a news conference Thursday morning in Brooklyn, where the charges against roughly two-thirds of the defendants were lodged, the people briefed on the arrests said.

By taking out the leadership of the Colombos and charging large numbers of reputed crime figures from the other families, the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors hoped the case would have a significant impact on organized crime. But one official noted that senior prosecutors and F.B.I. officials have declared victory or sought to write the mob?s epitaph many times in the past. Yet many tenacious and formidable organized crime families have endured, albeit weaker and with less influence, using violence and the threat of violence to amass wealth and influence.

Those who talked about the case did so on the condition of anonymity because the official announcement had not yet been made and because some court papers remained sealed. Most of the arrests were completed by 8 a.m. ? a mammoth undertaking involving the F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies, along with the United States attorneys? offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Newark and Providence, R.I.

The cases were also investigated by the New York Police Department, the New Jersey State Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States. Labor Department?s Office of Labor Racketeering, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, the Secret Service, the United States Marshals Service and several other agencies.

Mr. Holder?s decision to come to Brooklyn to announce the arrests would seem to underscore the importance of the case to the Justice Department.

A dozen of the indictments naming more than 80 defendants were handed up in Brooklyn, one of the people said. They charged members of all five of New York?s crime families ? Genovese, Gambino, Colombo, Luchese and Bonanno ? along with members of the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family.

One racketeering indictment focused on the Colombos, charging the family?s street boss, acting underboss and consigliere, along with four captains and eight soldiers, with crimes spanning two decades, the person said. The accusations cover all the members of the family?s leadership who are not currently incarcerated, the person said, and include the 1993 murder of underboss Joseph Scopo; the family?s control of Local 6A of the Cement and Concrete Workers Union; and defrauding the city in connection with an annual feast, Figi di Santa Rosalia, along 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst.

Two other racketeering indictments in Brooklyn name 13 members and associates of the Gambino family, including a senior crime family figure who is accused in a 1981 double murder in a Queens bar, and charges a conspiracy to extort a number of construction companies, the person said.

An indictment handed up in Newark charges 14 people with racketeering and extortion of Local 1235 of the International Longshoremen?s Association and other dockworkers locals, including several current and former union officials who are said to be affiliated with the Genovese family, according to the person. The indictment alleges a conspiracy over the course of many years to extort union members around Christmas, when they receive an annual bonus based on the number of cargo containers that move through the port, the person said.

The one indictment in Rhode Island charges two people, one of them an 83-year-old man who has been an enduring figure in the New England mob that was named for its former leader, Raymond L. S. Patriarca Sr., several people said. That case centered on a mob staple, the extortion of strip clubs, the people said.

The head of the New York F.B.I. office, Janice K. Fedarcyk, along with the United States attorneys from Brooklyn, Manhattan, Newark and Rhode Island ? Loretta E. Lynch, Preet Bharara, Paul J. Fishman and Peter F. Neronha, respectively ? were also expected to attend the news conference, along with officials from other agencies, including Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner of New York, and Daniel R. Petrole, the acting inspector general of the federal Labor Department.

The arrests came at a time when several federal, state and local law enforcement officials have expressed some concern about a possible resurgence of the influence of organized crime in some quarters after two decades of decline.

An impressive string of victories over the mob began in 1991 with the defection of the Luchese family?s acting boss, Alphonse D?Arco, who proved to be a devastating witness. Later that year, Salvatore Gravano, the Gambino family underboss, defected, and his testimony secured the conviction of John J. Gotti.

With the cooperation of those two men, a trickle of significant defections grew into a torrent, weakening the culture of omert?, the Mafia?s code of silence, and to some degree, the foundation of organized crime itself.

The subsequent loosening of the mob?s grip on several industries and unions led to regular proclamations about the mob?s deterioration and some refocusing of law enforcement resources. Those resources directed at organized crime were further reduced after the 9/11 attacks.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn and the F.B.I. nonetheless waged a campaign over the last decade that decimated the Bonanno crime family . But the relative health of crime families tends to run in cycles, with some ascendant and some on the decline.

The more-powerful Genovese family, for example, which has found its strength in labor racketeering and construction and some more-sophisticated schemes, remains powerful, as do the Gambino and Luchese families, law enforcement officials have said.

And in recent years, after the period of some declining focus, officials and union monitors say the mob remains stubbornly entrenched in a number of major construction unions ? including locals representing carpenters, concrete workers and operating engineers ? as well as on the waterfront.