Gotti Friend with Tampa Ties admits to killing says feds.

Gotti

John E. Alite,

TAMPA — A suspected mobster with ties to Tampa has pleaded guilty to a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act conspiracy charge that links him to John Gotti Jr., the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.
John E. Alite, 46, entered a plea Jan. 16 but it was kept secret until this week, its release triggered by another mob trial set for January in New York.
As part of the racketeering plea, prosecutors say Alite admitted involvement in two murders, four murder conspiracies, at least eight shootings and two attempted shootings — including one in which the intended victim was his former roommate at the University of Tampa, Tim Donovan.
He also acknowledged participation in armed home invasions and armed robberies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida, the government said.
Alite figured prominently in the trial of Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio and three co-defendants found guilty of conspiracy and racketeering by a federal jury in Tampa in 2006. Alite and Trucchio, a captain in the Gambino crime family, were business partners, federal prosecutors said.
At the time, prosecutors accused Alite of controlling illegal businesses, illegal gambling, extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and murder.
They said he used Prestige Valet, a Tampa company, to infiltrate the local valet business.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Alite has acknowledged his role as a top associate in the crime family and specifically admitted to participating in the murder of George Grosso on Dec. 20, 1998, and in the murder of Bruce John Gotterup on Nov. 20, 1991. Prosecutors said Alite also admitted to participating in four murder conspiracies, including conspiracy in 1990 to kill Louis DiBono.
All three New York-related murder charges were included in a Tampa indictment handed up against Gotti earlier this year.
Charles Carnesi, Gotti's defense attorney, said he doesn't see how Alite's plea will affect Gotti's case "one way or the other."
Carnesi said he did his own investigative work into Alite.
"It was clear to us he was going to claim he was involved," Carnesi said of Alite's confession to participating in the murders of Grosso and Gotterup.
"DiBono is a new one," Carnesi said. "I don't ever remember reading anything about that."
U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday recently granted a defense motion to transfer Gotti's federal racketeering and murder charges from Tampa to New York, where Gotti's attorneys argued the bulk of the alleged activity took place.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Trezevant has said that Alite and Gotti knew each other from Queens, N.Y. Gotti signed as a witness on Alite's marriage licence in 1989, records show.
During a court hearing in Tampa last month, Trezevant disclosed that Alite went to Gotti some time that same year with an idea to expand the Gambino crime family's reach into Tampa through the valet parking business. While he honeymooned in Hawaii, Alite reconnected with Donovan, the UT roommate, and learned of Donovan's booming valet operation, Trezevant said.
"Timmy Donovan is fascinated by this whole John Gotti organized crime thing," Trezevant said in court last month. "John Alite is interested in the fact that Timmy Donovan is a successful valet parking businessman in Tampa making a bunch of money for a young guy. And it's a cash-based business."
Donovan testified as a government witness during the 2006 Trucchio trial. At the time, he said he helped Alite set up his own valet business in New Jersey, though they were never partners. When Alite ran into money problems, he came to Donovan. But Donovan testified that he didn't have the $10,000 Alite wanted.
Federal prosecutors said Alite also admitted to extortion in the valet parking businesses and the businesses of bar and lounge security as well as trafficking in cocaine.
Alite's case remains before Senior U.S. District Judge Susan C. Bucklew in Tampa. The conspiracy charge to which Alite pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. He is currently in federal custody.
A federal judge in New York ordered prosecutors to turn over Alite's plea to defense lawyers for Charles "Charlie Canig" Carneglia, who is charged with conspiracy and murder under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and set to go on trial in January. Alite is a potential government witness in that trial.
Kevin Graham can be reached at kgraham@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3433.http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/article932766.ece

Mob killer Calabrese in solitary for threats

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December 3, 2008
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter/swarmbir@suntimes.com
Mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr., who once threatened in open court to kill a prosecutor, has been placed under tough lockdown measures usually reserved for terrorists at the Metropolitan Correctional Center after allegedly threatening again to kill the same prosecutor, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Calabrese Sr., 74, has been placed in solitary confinement since last month and is extremely limited in whom he can talk to, in an apparent attempt by the feds to stop him from communicating any orders for outsiders to carry out.
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Frank Calabrese Sr. is awaiting sentencing on his conviction in last year's Family Secrets trial. He was placed under lockdown at the prison after allegedly threatening to kill a prosecutor.
RELATED STORIESThe Outfit on trial: Updates from our blog
He can only be visited by three immediate family members and cannot speak with fellow prisoners. His defense attorney, Joseph “The Shark” Lopez, said he was turned away from visiting Calabrese Sr. Tuesday even though Lopez signed a form swearing he will not pass on any communications.
“If he has hemorrhoids, I can’t tell his wife,” Lopez said.
The U.S. attorney’s office had no comment on the restrictions, described as special administrative measures. White supremacist Matt Hale, who plotted to murder a federal judge, was under similar restrictions five years ago.
In last year’s Family Secrets trial, Calabrese Sr. was found to have committed seven mob hits. During prosecutor Markus Funk’s closing argument, he threatened that Funk was a “f------ dead man.”
He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 11 and faces life behind bars.

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From Wigderson Library &Times.

'Sopranos' actor goes on trial

Prosecutors in New York urged a jury yesterday to convict a former actor from The Sopranos of second degree murder for his part in a botched prescription medicines burglary nearly two years ago that ended in a gunfight and the killing of an off-duty police officer.
Lillo Brancato Jnr, who appeared as a novice wiseguy, Matt Bevilaqua, in the HBO drama series about Mafia boss Tony Soprano, bronx tale, faces charges of second degree murder for his part in the killing in December 2005 of a New York police officer, Daniel Enchautegui. Mr Enchautegui was killed in the front drive of his home in the Bronx after coming across Mr Brancato and another man apparently attempting to steal prescription drugs from the apartment of a neighbour. The second burglar, Steven Armento, drew a gun and killed Enchautegui, but not before the police officer had unholstered his gun, firing off bullets that wounded both his assailants.
In their opening arguments, government prosecutors said that the two men were engaged in a desperate attempt to steal prescription pills to feed their shared drug habit when they were interrupted in the dark by the off-duty officer. Lawyers for the 32-year-old actor countered, however, that their client was unarmed during the break-in and that only Armento had wielded a weapon. They said that it followed that it was Mr Brancato's friend alone who was the culprit in the killing. Their client, they added, did not know that his friend was carrying a gun.
In his opening statement, Mr Brancato's lawyer Joseph Tacopina said: "Lillo was there to satisfy his addiction. But he wasn't there to do violence - and that's important."
The trial is sure to capture the attention of New Yorkers, who are used to a blurred line between the fictional Mafia as portrayed on the screen, and the reality of their presence on the city's streets. But for a young actor who built his career being cast in gangland films, to find himself on both sides of this dividing line is surely unusual.
There is the additional irony that the killing took place in the Bronx. Mr Brancato's resumé includes details of how he first made the big-time in Hollywood, appearing while in his late teens opposite Robert De Niro in the 1993 film A Bronx Tale, also about Mafia machinations in the New York borough.
Mr Brancato's trial starts in the immediate wake of Armento's conviction. The 51-year-old was found guilty by a different jury on 30 October of first degree murder and was sentenced earlier this month to life in prison without the chance of parole.
Among those who have spoken out for Mr Brancato in advance of the trial has been his father, Lillo Brancato Snr. "He never killed nobody," he told reporters earlier this month. "I support him 100 per cent." He also spoke of his grief for the family of the dead police officer.
"What can I say? I'm sorry," the older Mr Brancato offered, before going on to defend his son again as someone who would be incapable of murder. "My son had no gun in his hand ... I've got one son who's a hunter. But Lillo, he's never touched a gun in his life."
Before the trial even started, the judge in the case turned down a request from the defence to disallow physical evidence collected by the prosecution showing tiny shards of glass in the boots worn by the accused. For a conviction, prosecutors must demonstrate that Mr Brancato committed the burglary that preceded the killing. They will tell the jury that the glass shows the actor kicked in the window of the apartment next door. He is better suited for Raging Bull in Hollywood will get aroung to updating it. Maybe will get a version
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Mob murder

Rhode Island State Police believe they have discovered the buried remains of slain mobster Joseph P. "Joe Onions" Scanlon behind the Lisboa Apartments in East Providence, according to a story by W. Zachary Malinowski and Mike Stanton of the Providence Journal.Police were directed to the site by Nicholas S. "Nicky" Pari, 71, of North Providence. Pari has already served time for the 1978 killing of Scanlon. He admitted to that crime back in 1982. His latest revelation for law enforcement came after he was arrested in Operation Mobbed Up earlier this week. The remains, unearthed yesterday, will be subjected to DNA testing.Scanlon grew up in an Italian neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut, aspiring to Mafia membership. He moved to Providence with hopes of joining the Patriarca Crime Family. Scanlon had a falling out with area mobsters and reportedly began cooperating with authorities investigating Pari and Andrew Merola (right). Less than a month after becoming an informant, Scanlon disappeared.Pari and Merola were both arrested for killing Scanlon. At trial, Scanlon's girlfriend testified that the two men cooperated on the murder. Pari punched Scanlon to distract him, and Merola then shot Scanlon in the back of the head. The pair was convicted of first-degree murder, but they won a new trial on appeal. They subsequently pleaded no contest to lesser charges.On April 1, 2007, Merola at the age of 71. He had been battling cancer. A Providence Journal story reported that one of his last visitors was Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, head of the regional crime family. With the support of the New York Gambino crime family Patriarca managed to maintain power. The Patriarca crime family is an ItalianAmerican organized crime family ...

Keywords: hartford, manocchio, merola, murder, pari, patriarca,

Joe "the animal" Barboza crew killed

Joe "The Animal" Barboza and crew, were ordered killed by Boss of the New England Mafia,Raymond Patriarca. The Boston North End Gang headed by murderous Capo Larry Bione were the shooters.

Sam Giancana

Sam Giancana (b.1908), Italian-American mob boss, was murdered at his home in Oak Park, Ill. He had a romance with Phillis McGuire, of the McGuire Sisters vocal group, and was credited with assisting John F. Kennedy in efforts to win the presidential election. A movie was made in 1995 that depicts the Giancana-McGuire romance.

SOPRANOS ACTOR TO STAND TRIAL FOR MURDER

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SOPRANOS ACTOR TO STAND TRIAL FOR MURDER

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By Ian Markham-Smith - Posted on 09 November 2008

Sopranos TV Mafia crime family series actor Lillo Brancato Jr. is to go on trial next week accused of a real life murder.
If convicted the 32-year-old actor, who played aspiring mobster Matt Bevilaqua on the show and has appeared in numerous Hollywood movies, could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
A conviction would bring to an end an acting career that became in 1993 when at the age of 17 when Hollywood legend Robert De Niro cast him in his big screen New York crime drama A Bronx Tale.
De Niro, who directed the flick and starred in it, gave Brancato the role as his son who was being groomed by a Mafia boss.
Brancato went on to have roles in such movies as Renaissance Man with Danny DeVito, Crimson Tide with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, Enemy of the State with Will Smith and again Hackman and The Adventures of Pluto Nash with Eddie Murphy in 2005.
But his personal life was spiralling out of control because of drug addiction.
Now a judge has ordered that Brancato, who has been charged in the December 2005 slaying of off-duty New York police officer Daniel Enchautegui, should go on trial on November 17.
Brancato's co-defendant Steven Armento, who actually shot the officer, was convicted of first-degree murder on October 30. He faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced on November 14, just three days before his alleged partner-in-crime goes on trial.
Authorities say Enchautegui confronted the pair when they two broke into a New York apartment to steal prescription drugs.
Brancato has said he did not know Armento had a gun.
The disgraced actor's father, Lillo Brancato, insists that his son is not guilty of murder - and instead claims he was a victim.
"He never killed nobody," 61-year-old Brancato Sr. said as the once-promising actor prepares for his trial. "I support him 100%."
Brancato said he will attend his adopted son's trial and is truly sorry for the family of the slain officer.
"What can I say? I'm sorry," he said. "But my son had no gun in his hand - and he got shot."
Enchautegui was off-duty and responding to a burglary outside his Pelham Bay home when he was fatally shot.
The younger Brancato's 51-year-old drug friend Armento was convicted of shooting the officer once in the chest at point-blank range when the cop tried to stop the pair from breaking into his neighbour's apartment.
Before he died, Enchautegui cop squeezed off eight rounds from his service weapon - striking Armento six times and Brancato twice.
Prosecutors charge that Brancato is as guilty as Armento, even though he was unarmed. If he is convicted of first-degree murder, Brancato faces life in prison without parole.

Jimmy Fratianno

JIMMY 'THE WEASEL' FRATIANNO
Rounded up in early Gangster Squad roust, Fratianno was allowed to stay in Los Angeles and became the mob's top hit man.


Detectives and reporters surround the car containing the bodies of the Two Tonys: Tony Trombino, 31, and Tony Brancato, 36, slain on Ogden Drive, half a block from Hollywood Boulevard. Both were shot through the back of the head, August 1951

This gangster’s fat in the fire

This gangster’s fat in the fire

For the FBI, bringing down the Cheeseman was like shooting fish in a barrel.

A very, very fat fish, that is. He weighs 400 pounds, this don of doughnuts, this king of the mozzarella mob. And Carmen DiNunzio can’t keep his bleepin’ mouth shut, any more than he can keep his pants from falling down around his 66-inch waist.

Yesterday, the feds released more information about the arrest of the 50-year-old moron formerly known as the Big Cheese, now the Cheeseman. And you can stick a fork in the Boston Mafia, because it’s all done.

As we pick up the story, Mr. Cheese is trying to muscle in on the very lucrative dirt racket in the city of Boston. The capo of capicola was scheming to sell dirt to the Big Dig. Go figure.

Of all the mistakes the Cheeseman made in this sad caper, the one I can’t get over occurred last Friday morning. He’d just been lugged, and as he sat around FBI headquarters, he began yapping about the family business.



I called up a retired wiseguy I know and read to him the 302 report on the Cheeseman’s revelations. The guy listened in silence until after I came to the final sentence.

“DINUNZIO advised that he believes that narcotics are ruining society.”

“What is he, a bleepin’ philosopher now?” my source said. “Doesn’t he understand everything he says will be used against him?”

But the G-men released even better material yesterday. They bugged conversations of his attempt to bribe a state hack. That’s right, you heard me - the Big Cheese wasn’t shaking someone down, he was delivering money to a guy he thought was a Mass. Highway Department inspector, for the privilege of dealing, not drugs, but dirt.

Only problem was, this corrupt hack was actually an undercover FBI agent. The third guy, the go-between, has been flipped.

You know how you learn in Mafia 101, never give your real name. The conversation begins with the rat introducing DiNunzio: “This is my friend, Carmen.”

The Cheeseman starts talking to the wired rat and the fed about what he was going to do to this trucker, Andrew Marino.

“I was gonna throw this bleeping kid off a roof,” he says.

First, Cheeseman, you’d have to run him down and catch him. And even if he were in a wheelchair, or even an iron lung, in a race against you, my money’d be on Marino.

The FBI hack then tells DiNunzio that “what I need is a guarantee that somebody’s got their foot on Marino’s neck.”

“Listen to me,” growls the gross gangster, “right here you got the guarantee from here.”

The fed is warming to his role. He is staring at 400 pounds of you-know-what stuffed in the sweatsuit of a 200-pound man.

“I don’t know you,” says the fed.

“I’m the Cheeseman.”

“You’re . . . the Cheeseman?” The fed deserves an Oscar for keeping a straight face as he says that. Back to you, Fromage-man.

“We straighten out a lot of beefs.”

And they eat even more of them. But by God.

“If they had 100 million dollars - and I’m talking out of school here. They better leave town. Cause it ain’t gonna be safe nowhere for them.”

Yeah, they cross the Cheeseman, he’ll sit on them.

“If the check ain’t there then I’m going to the bleeping can - ”

Yes, you are, Mr. Cheese. For a good long time, too.

Next, he starts stealing lines from “The Godfather.”

“If I can help you down the line. I’m not saying I can, but sometimes I could help you probably more than I could help myself or somebody in my own family because I’m, ah ...”

Because you’re the Cheeseman!

Mr. Cheese. For a good long time, too.

Next, he starts stealing lines from “The Godfather.”

“If I can help you down the line. I’m not saying I can, but sometimes I could help you probably more than I could help myself or somebody in my own family because I’m, ah ...”

Because you’re the Cheeseman!

Somewhere in Nahant, Gennaro Angiulo is weeping. Somewhere in Europe, Whitey Bulger is laughiing

The mobster who died in pink pajamas

By Paul Lieberman
The Gangster Squad got to Jack Dragna by bugging his mistress' bed.Dealing with him was the flip side of dealing with Mickey Cohen. Sure, Mickey ranted about the Los Angeles Police Department in public, but if squad members drew stakeout duty outside his Brentwood home on a hot day, his wife, Lavonne, would send out beers or invite them in for slices of chocolate cake.
With Dragna, icy distance was the rule when the squad members camped outside his banana warehouse or the Victory Market, where he held meetings in a concrete-walled back room. The squad's bugging expert, Con Keeler, did once get in between the rounds of a night watchman, but he didn't have time to fully conceal his bug. Dragna's men found it, carried it outside and smashed it on a curb.Dragna was cautious to a fault -- that's how he'd remained unscathed for decades, despite being branded the "Capone of Los Angeles"by Gov. Earl Warren's crime commission. A native of Palermo, Italy, he had arrived in California in 1914 and generally lay so low that one bookie was said to have asked, even in the 1940s, "Who the hell is Jack Dragna?"He was imprisoned once for extortion but won his freedom on appeal. By mid-century, his record was eight arrests, no convictions.
He knew how to go on the offensive, too, like after the 1950 dynamiting of Cohen's house, when the Gangster Squad hauled in Dragna's entire inner circle, and well as his son Frank, who had gone to USC and lost an eye in the war. The son then filed suit against the head of the squad and the "John Doe" officers who rousted him, seeking $350,000 for false arrest and humiliation, the latter for inviting photographers into the lockup.The younger Dragna's suit was pending in 1951 when the squad bugged the bed of his father's mistress. She was a secretary for the dry cleaners union, in which the mob had its hooks. If a dry cleaning shop didn't sign up, Dragna's men would send over suits with dye sewn inside so all the clothes in its vats turned purple or red.The secretary had a wooden headboard with a sunburst pattern. While she was out, Keeler picked the lock to her apartment and hid a mike in the center of the sun. Amid the pillow talk, the bug picked up occasional mentions of mob business, including plans for a new casino in Las Vegas. But that wasn't what the police used against the 60-year-old Dragna. Their ammunition came from other bedroom goings-on. If they couldn't get him for ordering hits on Cohen and his men, why not for "lewd/vag," lewd conduct and vagrancy?Dragna's lawyers could argue that the police didn't have a warrant to eavesdrop, but to no avail -- back then authorities could use illegally obtained evidence. The misdemeanor case earned Dragna a mere 30-day sentence, but how and where he was bugged stood to cost him respect in the mob. More significantly, the morals conviction could get him sent back to Italy.Indeed, Dragna was still fighting a deportation order when he died in 1956. They found his body in a Sunset Boulevard motel, in pink pajamas, with $986 in cash and two sets of false teeth nearby, his Cadillac parked outside. In his luggage was a small statue of Jesus and a newspaper clipping about his son's lawsuit, which had been dismissed.Paul Lieberman is a Times staff writer

Gay Night With Mobster Whitey Bulger

Infamous Mobster, James "Whitey" Bulger of the Winter Hill Mob had a gay one night stand with handsome actor Sal Mineo..Mineo was known for his Academy Award nominated performace opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause... Bulger killed plenty of people with tommy guns and pistols, but he slew Sal with cupids arrow right in the ass

Mobster meets his maker

Angelo "The Gentle Don" Bruno May 21 1910- March 21 1980 ran the Philadelphia crime family for two decades. Bruno gained his nickname and reputation because of his preference for only using violence as a last resort when settling disputes... .Unfortunately for Bruno his enemies didn't share the same philosophy.. Bruno wound up getting blasted to bits from a shotgun

OLD MOB PIMP GOT THE CLAP

Vincent "Jimmy" Caci. Caci didn't become a "Made Guy" untill he was over 60 years old. He had been passed over for years because mob bosses knew he had the heart of a mustard seed. When Cacis' pal, Pete Milano, became boss, Caci finally got his stripes. Caci once ran a whore house in Las Vegas . He caught the clap from one of his Ho's and he nearly beat her to death.

HOLLYWOOD HOODS GET HAMMERED.

Frank "Puggy" Sica was the hoodlum brother of big time Los Angeles racketeer, Joe "JS" Sica . Frank was a pint sized punk,with a big chip on his shoulder... He was nothing like his older brother, JS, who was well connected and respected by Mafia figures all over the country. Puggy Sica and Sal Di Giovanni were burgelers in the Sica gang.. They both got their clock cleaned by a bartender who first shot at them, and then beat the fuck out them both for punching and kicking a woman to the floor in a Hollywood gin mill.. The woman was Sal the Creep's girlfriend... Sal got beat so bad he looked like a racoon because he got two black eyes.. .Frank Sica had been arrested plenty of times, but my old lawyer Eddie "the Fixer" Gritz kept him out of the pokey. When I was an enforcer for JS, I hated seeing this little drunken fuck.... Anthony "The Animal" Fiato .

..Another true Hollywood story

Roy DeMeo Mobster

Roy Albert DeMeo (September 7 1940 – January 10 1983 was a ranking member of the Gambino crime family formerly one of the largest and most feared crime families in New York
He is most infamous for heading a crew of car thieves, drug dealers and murderers suspected by the FBI of somewhere between 75-200 murders from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The crew also gained notoriety due to their use of dismemberment as a method of disposing of their victims. For a time, Roy Demeo lived on a Waterfront Estate on Whitewood Drive in the Bar Harbour section of Massapequa Park,NY