Posted on Thursday, February 07, 2008 - 11:07 pm:

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February 8, 2008
Accused Gambino Leaders Indicted in Sweep

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
One crime stretched back to the 1976 killing of a court officer ambushed outside his home in the early morning hours to prevent him from testifying against a member of the mob.

Another took place just two years ago, an extortion scheme in which crime figures plotted how to siphon money from the planned Nascar racetrack on Staten Island. And over a span of years there were a number of thefts from the benefit funds of several construction unions.

These crimes, and scores of others, were outlined in state and federal indictments unsealed on Thursday that charged 87 people and represented a government move against the upper echelon of the Gambino crime family.

Beginning with early morning knocks on doors around the New York City area, the case formed the basis for a roundup that authorities called the biggest such sweep in memory, one that was coordinated with arrests by Italian authorities in Sicily.

The charges took aim at not only the family’s leadership but at a cadre of middle managers and lower level figures in the Gambino clan and others in the Bonanno and Genovese families. Also charged were several union and construction officials.

And if it was not the most debilitating blow ever struck against the mob, it left no doubt that organized crime, often declared as diminished or on the decline, remains a formidable force in the New York area. “It is simply wrong to suggest that La Cosa Nostra or LCN is no longer a threat to public safety or the economic vitality of New York City and the surrounding region,” said Mark J. Mershon, the assistant F.B.I. director who heads the bureau’s New York office.

The mob remains deeply entrenched in the construction industry, and New York’s five families continue to reap millions from staples like loan-sharking, labor racketeering, securities fraud, gambling and drugs.

At the same time, the scope of the schemes carried out by its members are limited only by their imagination and industriousness and included pirating cable TV signals and pioneering telephone billing scams.

While Thursday ended with much of the Gambino family’s leadership detained by the authorities and thus unable to operate effectively, the long-term impact of the case remains unclear, as other crime figures likely will be ready to stand in their stead.

Mr. Mershon commented at a news conference where Benton J. Campbell, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the indictments. Standing with him were two dozen other federal, state and local law enforcement officials whose agencies played a role in the case.

The arrests in New York were coordinated with a smaller sweep of accused organized crime figures in Palermo, Sicily, who were arrested on unrelated crimes, but charged in a case that United States and Italian authorities said was part of an effort to breach the close relationship between the Sicilian Mafia and the Gambino family.

The charges, unsealed in United States District Court in Brooklyn and in State Supreme Court in Queens, include seven murders, three dating back more than a quarter century, and racketeering, construction extortion and state gambling charges.

The crimes contained in the federal and state indictments were unrelated, stemming from different investigations. Some aspects of the federal inquiry, which itself included a wide range of crimes, began five years ago.

By Thursday evening, the army of about 400 agents and investigators who blanketed the city in the early morning had arrested 59 of the 62 people charged in the federal indictment and 20 of the 26 charged in state court in Queens, where the case was made by New York detectives and the office of Richard A. Brown, Queens district attorney.

Sixteen men whom federal authorities identified as senior crime family figures were held without bail in a series of arraignments that stretched into the evening.

They included the Gambino family’s acting boss, John D’Amico, 73, who is known as Jackie the Nose, and underboss, Domenico Cefalu, 61, who is known as Greaseball, and the consigliere, Joseph Corozzo, who is known as JoJo, the officials said.

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

Mr. Corozzo’s brother, Nicholas, a captain in the family, who was named in both indictments, remained at large, officials said.

The case was made with assistance of an informant, a trucking company executive who had been the victim of extortions and who had paid more than $200,000 to Gambino family figures, according to several officials with knowledge of the case. The executive, Joseph Vollaro, served prison time on a drug conviction several years ago and had shared a cell with Nicholas Corozzo, the officials said, and Mr. Vollaro’s successful trucking companies, Andrews Trucking and Dumpmasters of NY, were extorted by Mr. Corozzo and his brother.

Mr. Vollaro, whose cooperation was won by investigators from a State Organized Crime Task Force, made hundreds of hours of secret tape recordings that officials said will serve as the evidence for much of the case involving the construction extortions, officials said.

“This investigation was extraordinary in that it penetrated the inner workings of the Gambino family and simultaneously reached back in time to hold several members of the Gambino family accountable for their prior crimes,” Mr. Campbell said.

Mr. Campbell was speaking of the seven murders in the case. Prosecutors charged that five were committed by a single Gambino soldier, Charles Carneglia, from 1976 to 1990.

The first was the slaying of Albert Gelb, a court officer who arrested Mr. Carneglia in a Queens diner after noticing that he was carrying a pistol. Mr. Gelb was shot four days before he was to testify against Mr. Carneglia in that case. The last was the killing of an armored car guard, Jose Delgado Rivera, who was shot during a robbery.

In a telephone interview, Joseph Corozzo’s lawyer, his son, Joseph R. Corozzo, asked why federal prosecutors had included all 62 federal defendants in a single indictment, saying it would delay the case for months.

He argued that there was “no proper rationale for putting 62 people on one indictment.”

“It’s merely an attempt to detain people without bail for many, many months, which is contrary to the Constitution of the country.”

The construction extortion aspects of the investigation focused on the trucking industry, which hauls away dirt excavated from construction projects, said Gordon S. Heddell, inspector general of the United States Labor Department. Mr. Heddell said his agents were instrumental in starting the investigation.

“This investigation exposed the alleged grip that the Gambino organized-crime family has had over one of the largest construction markets in the United States, from small private projects to large-scale public works contracts,” he said.

“This involved the trucks that move construction material and debris throughout the entire New York City region: the cement that is poured to build house foundations out on Staten Island, the general contractors who are responsible for building condominiums over in New Jersey and even a proposed Nascar raceway.”

Two union officials were also charged. They are Louis Mosca, a business manager for New Jersey Laborers’ Union Local 325 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, and Michael King, a shop steward for the Building, Concrete, Excavating and Common Laborers Union Local 731 of Greater New York.

Also charged were a construction executive involved in the raceway project, William Kilgannon, and another man involved in the project, Todd Polakoff, who was charged with taking a $9,000 payoff from Mr. Vollaro.

Anthony Delvescovo, who the indictment says served as a project manager and director of tunnel operations for the Schiavone Construction Company, was charged with extortion and extortion conspiracy. The company could not be reached for comment.

Trucking company executives, from companies that included SRD Contracting, Firehawk Enterprises, Jo-Tap Industries, Andrews Trucking and Dump Masters of NY Inc., were charged with extortion and theft of union benefits.

The firms were licensed by New York City’s Business Integrity Commission, an agency that oversees private carting companies and businesses that haul construction debris. The commission, which also had a role in the investigation, is expected to move to revoke the companies’ licenses on Friday.

Daniele Pinto contributed reporting from Palermo, Sicily.

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Posted on Friday, February 08, 2008 - 08:00 am:

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Also charged were a construction executive involved in the raceway project, William Kilgannon, and another man involved in the project, Todd Polakoff, who was charged with taking a $9,000 payoff from Mr. Vollaro.

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