To answer Louie’s questions:

First, how was Lancellotti not charged with murders or attempted murders when he had been identified as a participant by Gaetano Scafidi and Ralph Natale?

Natale identified Lancellotti, Lucibello and Virgilio in connection to murders and attempted murders but none of them were charged. Natale also identified Angelina as a participant in the Billy Veasey murder and he was never charged with that crime. Lancellotti wasn’t the lone survivor of the murder indictments. The defence even used this fact at trial to argue that the government didn’t even consider Natale to be too reliable of a witness. The same argument was made by the defence about Scafidi’s testimony about the Joey Chang attempted murder. Lancellotti, Virgilio and Joe Curro were then identified in 2001 in an FBI memo sent to Philly PD describing a plot to kill Natale’s kids. None of the three were ever charged with conspiracy. So that’s Lucibello, Virgilio and Curro all identified as participants in murders, attempted murders and murder conspiracies but not one of them were ever charged. Lancellotti isn’t a special exception in this case. If anything Natale would have been a better witness in a case against Virgilio because he personally congratulated him after the Anthony Turra murder.

How did he avoid indictment in the early 2000s when everyone else in that case was indicted except for Lucibello who was indicted in 1994 and 2011?

Again, Lancellotti isn’t the only one. Michael Virgilio and Joe Curro were never charged with anything. Looking at people who haven’t died, there’s quite a few members and key associates who haven’t been in any serious trouble over the past 20 years. Martin Curro, Philip Ligambi, Albert Lancellotti, the Wagners, the Salvos, Anthony Borgesi, etc. Everything out there about Lancellotti personally surrounds how he’s a very quiet guy who doesn’t say much and doesn’t talk to many people. That goes a long way, and if you look at top guys in other families who have been on the street for quite a while untouched that’s the same way they operate.

How did he interact with Ron Previte time and time again including dozens of pictures with him and avoid indictment in the 2000 case?

I haven’t been able to find anything to indicate that Lancellotti was engaged in any criminal activity with Previte. He wasn’t identified in connection with Previte in any articles in the 1990s and he wasn’t mentioned in The Last Gangster at all until Anastasia talked about how Lancellotti, Virgilio and Lucibello avoided being caught up in the murder cases. It’s not like Previte had criminal interactions with every active member and associate. I’m not disputing that he had social interactions with Lancellotti, that’s well documented, but it doesn’t mean they were involved in any illegal business together. Ligambi, Massimino, Lancellotti, Lucibello, Virgilio, Curro, Filipelli, etc., were all active in the late 1990s yet none of them were touched by Previte. Any legal trouble they got into later on was unrelated to him.

How did he have the charges against him in the Borgata case dropped?

Like you yourself pointed out, there were questions in the case over whether the wiretap evidence investigators obtained actually recorded Lancellotti or another Michael. And, yet again, Lancellotti was not the only figure to have charges dropped for this reason. Stephen Casasanto’s lawyer got the charges against him dropped a few months after the indictment for the same reason, arguing that prosecutors hadn’t done their due diligence in making sure the “Stephen” caught on tape was actually him. A couple of other figures in the case who were first arrested with Lancellotti also had charges dropped.

How did he assault a guy with a beer bottle and then punch a guy in the face in front of a cop and only get probation, anger management and a $178 fine?

First, Lancellotti was not identified as the individual who assaulted the man with the bottle. He was only pointed out as one of the three men who started the fight, at which point Lancellotti punched the guy. The victim could not identify who had hit him with the bottle. Lancellotti was charged with simple assault, which under Pennsylvania law is a misdemeanour and does not carry a minimum jail sentence. Probation, counselling and a small fine seems understandable considering (as far as I’m aware) he had no record prior to the incident, the victim wasn’t a minor and he wasn’t charged with using the bottle as a weapon.

How did he avoid indictment in 2011 when he was all over the wiretaps between Licata and Fazzini, described as a caporegime and present at multiple ceremonies?

The bit about multiple ceremonies is incorrect, they only mentioned him by name in relation to the one ceremony where Fazzini and Eric Esposito were made. Steven Mazzone was also all over those tapes where he was identified as the consigliere and they talked about how he wanted to get his brother Sonny made. He was never charged in that case and if you look at the comment section for Big Trial articles from around that time there’s some baseless speculation that Mazzone “has to be” an informant to not be indicted. Maybe if Lancellotti attended the meeting with Licata and the Gambinos himself and got caught on tape there talking about criminal activity he would have been indicted. There were recordings and witness evidence against everyone else who got indicted in that case connecting them to different crimes, the investigators just didn’t have that against Lancellotti.

How did he avoid indictment in this case when everyone else at the ceremony has been indicted multiple times?

No-one in the case is charged just with attending the ceremony. Mazzone financed a loan of $10,000 to Persiano and personally collected interest from him. Grande was involved in the loan between Mazzone and Persiano, approved Persiano to collect extortion money, approved Persiano to work with Servidio, hooked up another cooperating witness with a bookmaking operation, and on multiple occasions accepted money from Persiano that had been collected the same day from the other cooperating witness. No-one in the case is charged just with what they did or said at the ceremony. So far, there’s nothing to suggest that Persiano, or any of the other cooperating witnesses, had such dealings with Lancellotti. If prosecutors thought participating in the ceremony was enough to build a case then Ligambi, Ciancaglini, Accardo, Sam Piccolo, the Borgesis and the two other (publicly) unidentified individuals at the ceremony would also be charged in this case. Ligambi, Ciancaglini and Borgesi specifically were all there in leadership roles. And again, Lancellotti is not the only one out of them who hasn’t been caught up in legal trouble before. Anthony Borgesi hasn’t been involved in any serious trouble. We also don’t know who the two unidentified attendees are so we can’t say for those either.

…

The way I see it, Lancellotti has been able to survive on the street for so long due to a combination of the way he conducts himself, questions over witness reliability (Natale particularly), prosecutorial ineptitude (the Borgata case), and a fair bit of luck (not being taken by Ligambi to the 2010 meeting with the Gambinos, etc.) Louie might argue that’s too much, but that’s the way life plays out sometimes. Some people get lucky, and Lancellotti increases his odds of staying lucky by keeping himself low key and not talking to many people. I’m not saying he’s not an informant and I’m not saying he is an informant (though unless someone puts a document in front of me with his name on it I’ll veer on the side of him not being an informant). All I’m pointing out is there are other explanations for all of these scenarios. This isn’t a situation where the only plausible answer is that he’s an informant. You can explain how he’s survived on the street for so long without that theory. He's never been the odd one out. In every case there's always been at least a couple of guys who have skated for similar reasons. First there was Lucibello and Virgilio in the 1990s, then Casasanto in the Borgata case, then Mazzone in the 2011 case, then Ligambi, Borgesi, Ciancaglini, et al. in this current case.