By Jerry Capeci
Trio Pleads Guilty In Garbage Case; Baseball Bat Assault Of FBI Operative Still A Mystery
Three Genovese family gangsters pleaded guilty last week to two loansharking schemes that led to a brutal baseball bat beating of an FBI operative who was working undercover against organized crime activity in the waste hauling industry in New York and New Jersey.But the feds have not been able to link the trio – or anyone else for that matter – to the vicious February 26, 2012 assault against the independent private carter who wore a wire for three years. The main target of the probe, 77-year-old lead defendant Carmine (Papa Smurf) Franco, is still awaiting trial on labor racketeering charges along with 25 others.The attack itself took place on a Sunday night when the assailant, without saying a word, assaulted the undercover operative with a bat. A week later the thug left the bat – wiped clean of fingerprints – in the cab of the cooperating witness's garbage truck as an eerie reminder of the vicious assault.Despite a wealth of suspects – four mob crews "controlled" the victim's business and extorted protection payments from him during the lengthy probe – authorities have acquired no evidence implicating any mob guys in the beating, even though the snitch continued wearing a wire for two months after the attack."I got smacked over the head, knocked out unconscious, my right eye is smashed in," the cooperating witness told his alleged mob handler in his first phone call after the bloody assault, according to a transcript of the conversation obtained by Gang Land."I don't know what I got hit with, but I got a grapefruit on my head. My right eye, I can't open it. It's all purple and blown up, it looks like I got a golf ball on it," he said a day later, following his release from an area hospital.No actual violence is alleged against any defendant in the 15 count indictment. But a year before the attack, a longtime Genovese associate who copped a plea deal, William Cali, who often used the alias Joe Cali, was tape recorded boasting of his prowess with a baseball bat on two successive meetings with the cooperating witness, Gang Land has learned.In one meeting, on February 16, 2011, when the informer mentioned that Mexican criminals had stolen merchandise from him, Cali said "he would bust their heads with a baseball bat" if he ever caught up with them, according to an FBI report that was obtained by Gang Land.Two days later, according to a summary of a follow up discussion by FBI agents Jon Jennings and Natale Parisi, as the men talked about a guy who was giving one of Cali's underlings a "hard time," Cali again mentioned his batting prowess, threatening to "put him in a coma with a baseball bat."During another taped talk that same week, Joe Cali talked openly about his loanshark business, saying, "I still make my living on the street with my shylock customers and everything else." He added that the threat of violence helped him collect. "When you have no muscle in the business you're in, you've got a lot of problems," he said.Cali, 59, pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to extortion conspiracy for coercing the private carter, whose name is being withheld by Gang Land, to fork over the money he owed the gangster from February to July of 2011.At sentencing, Cali, whose first conviction was in 1973, faces 24-to-30 months behind bars, according to a plea agreement worked out by attorney Aaron Goldsmith, who told Gang Land that his client did not engage in any violence or any overt threats."I made him understand if he doesn’t pay me, it wouldn’t be good," is how Cali explained his actions to Judge Kevin Castel. "I made him a little frightened, your honor."A pair of elderly Genovese mobsters, Dominick (Pepe) Pietranico and Joseph Sarcinella, who allegedly controlled the undercover private carter and extorted protection payoffs from him for a year, both pleaded guilty to loaning him $12,500 at a usurious interest rate of 150% a year. According to their plea deals, Pietranico, 82, faces 30 to 37 months, and Sarcinella, 78, between 27 and 33 months in prison.As part of their agreements, racketeering conspiracy, extortion and all other charges will be dismissed against the three men, the first to plead guilty in the case. The case is slated for trial next year, but Gang land expects that most, if not all the defendants, will also cop plea deals.Despite the beating, the cooperator told the FBI he wanted to continue his undercover work. On Monday, February 27 of last year, the day after his assault, he reached out to the mob underling who did the daily dirty work for Gambino soldier Anthony Bazzini to inform him of the assault, and try to determine who was responsible."Somebody must not be too happy with me," he told Scott Fappiano, explaining why he hadn't shown up the night before with a regular payment that was due. "I got bashed over the head. They took me to the hospital in the ambulance," he said.During a long back and forth, Fappiano empathized with the informer, but pointedly asked him what he had "been doin' that you're not supposed to be doin'?" Fappiano promised to see if he could learn anything about the attack, although he theorized that it was a "random" thing, and not related to the garbage business."They… they … they'd say something and leave you a message, you know, why they're doin' something like that, they just don't do that unless … he's a fucking lunatic," said Fappiano. "I don't know. I couldn't explain that."Fappiano, a longtime Colombo associate who gravitated to the Gambinos in recent years, told the battered independent carter that he was "sorry it happened" but reminded him of his continuing financial obligations to Fappiano and his cohorts, and told him not to forget them."You have to stop by and see me," said Fappiano. "I had to go these people today, I told you that it was important. I was supposed to have that Friday."When the carter assured Fappiano that he had the $185 payment, the gangster replied that wasn’t enough: "Well, you're having it is not good for me."
