Nearly 125 Arrested in Sweeping Mob Roundup

Nearly 125 Arrested in Sweeping Mob Roundup
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The New York Times
January 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/nyregion/21mob.html

The criminal accusations spanned several states and several decades, encompassing figures from seven mob families, and led to the arrest of nearly 125 people on federal charges on Thursday.

There were murders, including a double homicide over a spilled drink in a Queens bar. There were the more run-of-the-mill activities associated with organized crime: racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking, money laundering, gambling and the like.

There were even some names from mob lore, including Luigi Manocchio, 83, the former boss of New England’s Patriarca crime family, who was said to have dressed in women’s clothing to avoid capture decades ago. He was arrested in Florida, accused of another mob standby: shaking down strip clubs, in Providence, R.I.

The charges were included in 16 indictments handed up in federal courts in four jurisdictions. Taken together, they amounted to what federal officials called the “largest mob roundup in F.B.I. history.”

The indictments were announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who appeared at a news conference on Thursday morning in Brooklyn.

For the attorney general, it was an opportunity to preside over the kind of law enforcement operation that was once the core mission of the Justice Department, but that has been largely overshadowed during his tenure by far more ambiguous issues inherited from the Bush administration. Mr. Holder spoke of the “unprecedented scope and cooperation” in the investigation, but questions were also raised by the diffuse nature of the indictments, which involved myriad unrelated criminal activity.

The sweep began before dawn, with 800 federal agents and state and local investigators fanning out across the region. The targets, officials said, ran the gamut from what they called small-time bookmakers and shakedown artists to mob middle managers and the entire current leadership of the Colombo crime family, as well as two senior Gambino family figures. Prosecutors said 34 made members of New York’s five crime families — Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Luchese — and crime families in New Jersey and New England were among those arrested.

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. But at the same time, officials acknowledged that the mob had shown itself to be remarkably resilient.

“Arresting and convicting the hierarchies of the five families several times over has not eradicated the problem,” said Janice K. Fedarcyk, the head of the New York F.B.I. office, calling it a “a myth” that the mob is a thing of the past.

At the news conference, Mr. Holder also announced that the Justice Department was merging its Organized Crime and Racketeering Section with its Gang Unit, a move he said would provide more-experienced prosecutors and increased resources for cases like the one announced on Thursday.

Some federal, state and local law enforcement officials have privately expressed concern about a possible resurgence in some quarters of the influence of organized crime after two decades of decline.

Mr. Holder emphasized several times that organized crime remained one of the department’s top priorities because mob members and associates were “among the most dangerous criminals in our country.” And he played down the notion of a resurgent mob, saying that while it had been weakened, and “is probably not nationwide in its scope, in its impact, as it once was,” it remained a continuing major threat “to the economic well-being of this country.”

He said his decision to go to Brooklyn to announce the arrests was meant to underscore the importance of the case to the department. Others at the news conference included the head of the department’s Criminal Division, Lanny A. Breuer, and the United States attorneys from Brooklyn, Manhattan, Newark and Rhode Island: Loretta E. Lynch, Preet Bharara, Paul J. Fishman and Peter F. Neronha, respectively. There were also 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.

Most of the arrests took place before 8 a.m.; by early evening, all but 3 of the 127 men sought had been taken into custody. Most of them were processed at a United States Army base in Brooklyn and arraigned in the borough’s federal courthouse.

Most of the defendants whom prosecutors characterized as higher-ranking mob figures were held without bail after pleading not guilty.

A dozen of the indictments, naming more than 80 defendants, were handed up in Brooklyn. Among those charged, according to the indictment, were the Colombo street boss Andrew Russo, the acting underboss Benjamin Castellazzo and the consigliere Richard Fusco, and two high-ranking members of the Gambino family hierarchy: the consigliere Joseph Corozzo and the ruling panel member Bartolomeo Vernace.

They were named in a racketeering indictment that also charged four reputed captains and eight soldiers. The alleged crimes spanned two decades and include the 1993 murder of underboss Joseph Scopo, the family’s asserted control of Local 6A of the Cement and Concrete Workers Union and the asserted defrauding of the city in connection with an annual feast, La Festa di Santa Rosalia in Bensonhurst.

Two indictments unsealed in Manhattan charged 26 men they identified as Gambino crime family figures, including Mr. Vernace and Mr. Corozzo, with racketeering, extortion, assault, arson and running a large marijuana and cocaine trafficking operation.

The indictment claims that they distributed cocaine and marijuana over 30 years, generating tens of millions of dollars in profit for the crime family. Two other racketeering indictments in Brooklyn name 13 men described as Gambino members and associates, including Mr. Vernace, who is charged in the double murder in the Shamrock Bar in Queens.

Mr. Vernace’s lawyer, Gerald L. Shargel, said his client was acquitted of the murders in state court in 2002. “These charges will be vigorously contested,” he said.

An indictment handed up in Newark charged 14 people, including several current and former union officials who are said to be affiliated with the Genovese family, with racketeering and extortion of Local 1235 of the International Longshoremen’s Association and other dockworkers’ locals.

The indictment charges a conspiracy over the course of many years to extort union members around Christmastime, when they receive an annual bonus based on the number of containers moving through the port.

The indictment in Rhode Island charged Mr. Manocchio — said to be an enduring figure in the New England mob that was named for its former leader, Raymond L. S. Patriarca Sr. — and Thomas Iafarte, 61, with extorting strip clubs.

Mr. Manocchio, long viewed as the quiet, disciplined power behind the Patriarca family, is a man whose low-key, old-school style has, over the years, reined in a dysfunctional crime operation, officials have said.

Dan Barry and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.


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F.B.I. and Police Arrest More Than 100 in Mob Sweep
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The New York Times
Published: January 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/nyregion/21mob.html


In a blanket assault against seven mob families in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, the F.B.I. and local authorities began arresting more than 100 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 small-time book makers and crime-family functionaries to a number of senior mob figures and several corrupt union officials, according to several people briefed on the arrests. Among those arrested or sought, some of the people said, were more than two dozen made members of New York’s five crime families and the families in New Jersey and New England, along with dozens of their associates.

Several of of the men arrested, the people who had been briefed said, were charged with murders — some dating back to the 1980s and 1990s. Others were charged with selections from a full menu of mob crimes: racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking 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.

The arrests were based on more than a dozen unrelated indictments handed up in federal courts in four jurisdictions, several of the people said. Taken together, the arrests appeared to be the largest such sweep of organized crime figures ever conducted by federal authorities.

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

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 federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States. Labor Department’s Office of Labor Racketeering, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor and several other agencies.

The decision to announce the arrests in Brooklyn and Mr. Holder’s planned presence at the news conference would seem to underscore the importance of the case to the Justice Department.

The arrests came at a time when several federal, state and local law enforcement officials have expressed some concern about a resurgence of organized crime’s influence 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 omertà, the Mafia’s code of silence, and thus the foundation of organized crime itself.

The subsequent loosening of the mob’s grip on several industries and unions led to proclamations about the mob’s decline 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.


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Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Thu, January 20, 2011 -- 8:33 AM ET
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F.B.I. and Police Arrest More Than 100 in Mob Sweep

In a blanket assault against seven mob families in New York,
New Jersey and Rhode Island, the F.B.I. and local authorities
began arresting more than 100 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
small-time book makers and crime-family functionaries to a
number of senior mob figures and several corrupt union
officials, according to several people briefed on the
arrests. Among those arrested or sought, some of the people
said, were more than two dozen made members of New York's
five crime families and the families in New Jersey and New
England, along with dozens of their associates.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/nyregion/21mob.html