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11-7-01
Feds: Bank Was Mob Family Biz.
By KATI CORNELL SMITH,
New York Post

November 7, 2001 -- A Mafia crew, headed by a reputed Bonanno family underboss, had the run of a Long Island bank where wiseguys raked in profits through illegal loans and even doled out a beating in the conference room, prosecutors charged.

Federal authorities arraigned seven defendants, including mob underboss Salvatore "the Chief" Vitale and former European American Bank branch manager Joseph Cuccio, charging them with extortion, money laundering and a host of other crimes.

The 35-count racketeering indictment was handed up at Central Islip federal court. With Cuccio working on the inside, the reputed mobsters set up shop at EAB's Melville branch where they met with their loan-sharking victims and had access to personal account information since 1995, a law-enforcement official said.

"This case is particularly significant because of the success this Bonanno crew had in infiltrating a major financial institution through the corruption of a single high-placed bank official," U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad said.

But the crew's idea of customer service was distinctly mob-style, according to the indictment. They used gun threats and baseball bats to extort payment and caned a "customer" in the bank's conference room in December 1998, according to the indictment.

The bank allegedly served as Vitale's headquarters from 1995 to last April for money laundering, collecting gambling debts, certifying false financial information and manipulating cash transaction records to avoid federal reporting requirements.

Prosecutors say the Bonanno crew also ran a gambling operation out of a second business: the Changing Times Bar and Grill in Farmingdale. The judge set bail for Vitale, 54, of Syosset, at $500,000 and ordered he await trial under home detention.

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