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11-7-01
U.S. Arrests 7 in Mafia Use of a Bank on L.I.
November 7, 2001
By ALAN FEUER, New York Times
At first glance, the European American Bank on Broad Hollow Road in Melville, on Long Island, seemed like a typical suburban retail branch. There were teller windows and safe deposit boxes. Customers filed in and out, withdrawing and depositing their money.
Behind closed doors, however, things were different, the authorities said. Federal prosecutors say the bank was actually run by sophisticated gangsters who used it as a front for money-laundering, loan-sharking and collecting gambling debts.
Yesterday, seven people, including the No. 2 man in the Bonanno crime family, were charged with what amounted to turning an ordinary- looking bank branch into a one-stop shopping center for financial crimes. The Mafia's grip on the bank was apparently so strong that a former branch manager was indicted.
Even as patrons signed deposit slips at the teller windows, the men were working in back, the prosecutors said, laundering illegal money and going over numbers debts. Once, the government said, a man who was late on his illicit payments was taken to the branch's conference room and beaten with a cane.
"The use of this E.A.B. branch as a bank for the mob afforded the Vitale crew a legitimate place to carry out their illegitimate business," said Alan Vinegrad, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, where the indictment was returned. Mr. Vinegrad said that E.A.B. and Citibank, which recently acquired E.A.B., had cooperated fully in the case.
The "Vitale crew" was named for Salvatore Vitale, 54, who was described as the underboss, or second in command, of the Bonanno family. In 1987, Mr. Vitale was acquitted in another racketeering case, in which he was accused of hijacking a pair of trucks.
Mr. Vitale's arrest dealt a significant blow to the Bonannos, who are still reeling from the conviction of their consigliere, or No. 3 man, in April. The consigliere, Anthony Spero, was found guilty of ordering the deaths of three men, including a petty thief who unwittingly broke into his daughter's house in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.
The only member of the Bonanno family's top administration still at large is Joseph C. Massino, the government says. Mr. Massino, who has long been described as the family's boss, is Mr. Vitale's brother-in-law. He was also acquitted in the 1987 racketeering case.
Although Mr. Massino has been a target of law enforcement officers since he was found not guilty 14 years ago, he has always said he was a legitimate businessman. He says he works as a consultant for King Caterers, a company in Farmingdale, N.Y., that furnishes sandwiches, hot dishes and snacks for street vendors.
"I don't believe there is such a thing as the Mafia," Mr. Massino said in an interview last year. "A bunch of Italian guys go out to eat, and they say it's Mafia."
Yesterday's indictment asserted that Mr. Vitale's crew did not operate only out of the bank in Melville. They were also accused of using a Farmingdale restaurant called the Changing Times Bar and Grill to divide up their gambling profits and betting slips.
Six other men, five from Long Island and one from Queens, were charged in the indictment with Mr. Vitale: Joseph Cuccio, 51, the former bank manager, of Lake Ronkonkoma; Thomas Driscoll, 42, of North Massapequa; George Fillipone, 56, of Farmingdale; Lawrence Neder, 56, of Old Bethpage; Daniel Talia, 35, of West Babylon, and Vincent DeCongilio, 49, of Ozone Park.
They each face a maximum of 20 years in prison on the racketeering charges. Mr. Cuccio faces an additional 30 years on a bank fraud charge.
