Yea i get it just dont like to say name unless they r made ..u know that is the life they chose

Also i have known him his whole life ,He was a late bloomer.

Sentenced for Submitting False Loan Applications

September 3, 2010 — Leave a commentJason Vitulano, 44, Boca Raton, Florida, the former branch manager for the Top Dot Mortgage Boca Raton branch, was sentenced August 26, 2010, to 63 months in prison by U. S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks. Vitulano had previously pled guilty to Counts 1 and 12 in the superseding indictment.Co-defendant and attorney Joseph Miller, 64, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was sentenced on August 26, 2010, to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to the conspiracy.Miller had acted as the title agent on a number of closings on fraudulent mortgage loan deals set up by Vitulanoand others.Co-defendant Steve Vento, 42, Jupiter, Florida, was sentenced on August 26, 2010, to one year and a day after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges.Vento was a Top Dot client who submitted fraudulent loan applications in order to obtain financing on real property he owned.Co-defendant Peter Hartofolis, 33, Flushing, New York, was sentenced on August 27, 2010, to 27 months in prison for his role as a manager in theTop Dot Mortgage office in Boca Raton, Florida.Vitulano and his co-defendants were charged with conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud by submitting false mortgage loan applications toWashington Mutual and other lenders between January 2006 and October 2007, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1349.Vitulano was also charged in the superseding indictment with three counts of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and six counts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, in addition to the conspiracy charge.According to the charges and statements made in court in connection with the pleas, Vitulanoand co-defendant Peter Hartofilis were branch managers of the TopDot Mortgage office in Boca Raton, FL, and they devised a scheme to submit loan applications to numerous lenders that contained grossly inflated statements of loan applicants’ earnings and assets on deposit in a local bank. Attorney Joseph Miller acted as closing agent and title agent on a number of these loan transactions.Miller agreed to divert loan proceeds to the personal accounts of Vitulano, Hartofilis and others without disclosing that fact to the mortgage lenders.Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Henry Gutierrez, Postal Inspector in Charge, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Miami Division, Michael K. Fithen, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Secret Service, Miami Field Office, J. Thomas Cardwell, Commissioner, State of Florida Office of Financial Regulation, and Alex Sink, Chief Financial Officer, State of Florida Department of Financial Services, announced the sentencing.Mr. Ferrer commended the State of Florida Office of Financial Regulation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Secret Service, and the State of Florida Department of Financial Services for their work in the case. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lauren Jorgensen and Ellen Cohen. The law enforcement agents and prosecutors are members of the Palm Beach County Mortgage Fraud Task Force.

Is vento jr apart of the philly mob and is he still in florida? Its the same place where joey merlino curently lives, very interesting

Nah, he's not with the philly guys. I heard he just got of prison again for the bank fraud shit and for being part of a stolen car retagging operation. He got locked up for around 6 years and got out maybe a year ago. I heard he has a race team down in florida and races bikes.

He was and probably still is one crazy fuckin guy.

But his father was under philly, I know this guy is kicking up to somebody, he's a natural earner

His father flipped and testified at the big philly meth/p2p trial. Merlino's father was one of the defendants in the case so i'm really not sure what the deal is with Vento Jr and the Merlino crew.

At one time his father was one of the biggest p2p dealers in philly. But after his son got busted for trying to break him out of prison he flipped. Pretty sure he was with the Hunchback before he got put away. He died of a heart attack years ago.

Vento sr "was one of the few big mobsters that refused to pay tribute to the Cosa Nostra," recalled Frank Friel, public safety director of Bensalem Township and former head of the Philadelphia Police-FBI organized crime homicide task force.Scarfo never collected the street tax from Vento, who continued to run hisdrug operation from his prison cell and order P2P from Germany even though he knew his phone conversations were tape-recorded.In one call, Vento told an intermediary to tell a mob soldier who was demanding "street tax" from his drug profits to "go f - - - himself and everybody connected to him, all right?"

wow orlando sure sounds drugged up during that testimony, thanks for the link.

3rd recording 25-35 minutes. Jacobs destroys Falcone aka garcia.

Vinnietoothpicks he sounds like he's telling the truth and on point to me. Jacobs is doing what Jacobs does best. That's why he gets the big bucks. I think he handled himself really good on his cross exam. Listen to the second tape he buries them on direct. You think that Natale really ran the family and was higher than Skinny Joey?

Hes telling the truth but he was a bad witness. He shouldent have said stupid shit like 'joey was the real boss'. No way the prosecutor would have wanted him to say that. Yeah, Jacobs is a great attorney, but when faced with a weak witness like that, it was easy pickings.

Listen to his direct exam on tape two. I guess we will see if they call him back for Ligambi and Borgesis's retrial. As far as saying Joey was the real boss, well that's the truth. The prosecutors should have never credited Natale a a real boss.

I thought I did listen to the direct. Did he say that on direct? If so my bad, I still think he got killed on cross.
Do you think they called him as a replacement for skins?

I do Vinnie, since Skins is no more they needed to bring in an expert to introduce those tapes he made with Phily. I was wondering why they picked Garcia in the first place since he was undercover with the Gambinos. I am surprised they didn't bring in guys like Leonetti, Geno Milano, or even some of the Philadelphia FBI agents from the past to introduce the tapes. I think they threw Garcia into the Lions cage and considering not really knowing the landscape of the Philadelphia family he did pretty good.

If ligambi beats the charges he should be mazzones consig, he's close to retiring anyway

I still think garcia was a bad witness. He made too many impeachable statements. Jacobs made mince meat out of him and seriously damaged his credibility to the jury.

Vinny it don't say anything about "impeacheable statements" or being made into mince meat on this article;
FBI agent details the mob life at Ligambi trial
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By John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: November 01, 2012
Joaquin Garcia was an appropriate witness for a mob trial on Halloween.

Over two years, the Cuban-born FBI agent donned the most convincing disguise: Jack Falcone, a Miami-bred thief and scam artist who became such a trusted associate that a Gambino crime family captain proposed Falcone's induction as a made member.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors at the trial of the alleged leaders of the Philadelphia mob cast Garcia in another role. He was the professor, the expert with real-life experience enlisted to provide jurors an inside look at La Cosa Nostra and to interpret its members' conversations at secretly recorded gatherings.

Garcia described the induction process, the hierarchy, and the way the mob makes its money.

"The source of their power is intimidation," Garcia said under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney David Fritchey. "The source of their power is their ability to conduct violence in furtherance of their objectives."

He also weighed for jurors the significance of reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi's trip to a North Jersey restaurant in 2010. There, Ligambi met with John Gambino, a captain representing the administration of the New York crime families.

"This is a very important meeting," Garcia said after jurors heard secretly recorded excerpts of the gathering. "You're dealing with two families coming together to meet. And the fact that the New York Gambino crime family came to New Jersey to meet with Philadelphia shows that New York is recognizing Philadelphia to be a vital La Cosa Nostra crime family."

Garcia, 60, testified as the racketeering trial against Ligambi and six others entered its third week before U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno. Prosecutors say the defendants ran a network that used threats to control illegal gambling, extortion, and loan-sharking rackets across the city.

Defense lawyers say the charges are flimsy, lack any substantive proof of violence, and are built on the word of discredited informants and criminals trying to save themselves. During earlier testimony Wednesday, Ligambi's attorney pressed another FBI agent to explain how gathering for a meal in a public restaurant was a crime.

"That's a big part of their lifestyle, isn't it? A nice lunch, a nice dinner, maybe a snack in between," quipped the lawyer, Edwin Jacobs.

At roughly 300 pounds, Garcia might not disagree. "Bottom line is that we ate more with the mob than you do on a cruise ship," he later testified, detailing the lifestyle.

Now retired, Garcia is no stranger to Philadelphia. He was stationed here in the late 1990s, working undercover to detect and disrupt drug cartel pipelines that supplied dealers in North Philadelphia. But his mob work came a decade later, when he was recruited to infiltrate the Gambino crime family.

His dark hair and imposing frame gave him a presence, but Garcia said he realized he was always in danger. Undercover work, particularly within the Mafia, "is kind of like being an actor, except the difference is you don't get second or third takes," he said.

After passing himself off as a low-level criminal, he befriended and became the driver and confidant for Gregory DePalma, a Gambino captain, and gathered intelligence about the crime families.

Garcia said he once proposed to DePalma that they work with an associate in Philadelphia, a man who he secretly knew was an undercover FBI agent. But DePalma cautioned him against getting entangled with counterparts in the City of Brotherly Love.

"He said, if you go with Philadelphia, you got to watch out, it's the wild, wild West down there," the ex-agent said.

Garcia also described for jurors the initiation ceremony, where bosses and other members gather in a circle as the newly made member stands before a table that holds a knife and a gun.

"That's symbolic," he told jurors. "That means you're going to live and die by the process of those two things."

In decades past, mobsters had to have committed a murder to be considered for induction, because killers usually couldn't also be FBI cooperators, Garcia said.

That's changed.

"The mob has morphed over the years. They realize that guys with blood on their hands have cooperated, have testified," he said. "Now, foremost you have to be an earner."

His testimony is scheduled to continue Thursday.

Contact John P. Martin at 215-854-4774, jmartin@phillynews.com or @JPMartinInky on Twitter.
http://articles.philly.com/2012-11-01/news/34858755_1_jack-falcone-edwin-jacobs-philadelphia-mob

Big Fella, do you think Stevie has some major explaining to do to Uncle Joe and Borgesi about Anthony Nicodemo's hit on Gino DiPietro during their trial?

Bean. We can agree to disagree cant we? I have been at some criminal trials in my day and in my opinion I can tell when a witness is made to look bad to the jury.
But at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding.
He was made to look as if he lacked credibility on the philly mob. Moreover, an initation ceremony? So what. Thats common knowledge.
You think it made the prosecutor look good when GArcia said that the FBI was wrong in portraying Natale as a boss in a previous trial?
All that stuff creates reasonable doubt.

I see your point Vinnie, But I got to give him kudos for telling the truth and not making shit up. Jacobs smelled blood and saw an opening when Garcia did not name Natale as the real boss and then he went to work. Garcia did stick to his guns. He probably knew from his NY case that Skinny Joey was and is the boss. Sounds like the prosecutors threw him under the bus without preparing him properly about Natale's role, or maybe they did, and garcia just said fuck it and said what he knows. I will be curious to see if the prosecutors call him to testify again on the next trial. I will never understand why the prosecutors named Natale as the real boss of Philadelphia.

Bean,
The feds wanted to pretend like they got a boss to flip. He was more like uncle june than tony. If Joey had it in his mind all along to have him be the lightning rod than it was brilliant. However, in the sopranos, June told federal prosecutor to fuck off; but natale cooperated...

So true, now they have one in Joe Massino!