Some strong Philly accents

Actor, insurance salesman, and a union laborer (or similar) if I'm not mistaken.

Lol

Crazy how nephew and Uncle spent the last 3years together locked up. But now need to stay away from eAch other for 18months lol I don't understand why Borgesi got put on for that long? I thought he had the same sentence as merlino time and everything??
All I know is this trial made Borgesi the most feared man in Philly, anyone that read the papers prolly thinks he beat 11 murders and all types of fabricated exaggerated stories by the prosecutors and cheerleading media...lol thanks to all of them Borgesi will have more envelopes coming in n maybe get rich lol
Merlino crew def runs philly, they got the numbers n thanks to the Uncle there won't be any beef wit Scarfo guys, cause he is an X Scarfo soldier himself

Giancarlo, who's the beefy guy in the blue jeans walking beside Ligambi in that pic?

LOL at Anthony Borgesi wearing a boxing gym jacket. I've heard he's never been in a fight in his life!

Joe looks happy though.

I don't know who he is....sorry.

Maybe one of the south philly guys here knows.

Thank you for the pics! :-)

Break out the Opus One!! Uncle Joe is home!!

He has 2 uncles and a brother (maybe) who are made who he can talk to freely. He shouldn't get caught unless he's being stupid.

Joe hands gym!

Mob wannabes either become wiseguys or grow up and move on doing something else.

Not Anthony.

Washington Township in South Jersey is little south philly. There's someone smarter then vince that has taken his spot. Staino just wasn't Ligambi's confidant he was his gopher. The audio tapes from the trial show that with him making the daily rounds for their poke company. Ligambi is greedy he got fat while you had George starving and wrestling with informants in prison. George will have Anthony take over his operations and then Anthony will flip and there will be another trial. On joey's orders George might have to kill Anthony for what he said about joey to the press.

I wonder if Georgie can meet with Uncle Joe since UJs conviction for Frankie was overturned. I could be wrong but think the conviction Jacobs mentioned was for cigarette bootlegging. Uncle Joes house is about a 3 iron away from Nicodemos. There are a few guys around that neighborhood actually. Right near the Eagles practice field.

Uncle Joes kids are straight tools and dont let anyone tell you otherwise... and even though Georgie has them parole restrictions, theres no way hes gonna go 18 months and not run into numerous guys that are connected. South Philly is too small and hes gonna run into them. He has probably already touched base with Mazzone.

Ligambi have any restrictions that he has to obey or he can go and do what he wants with no supervision ,

He was found not guilty and the rest were hung and dismissed with prejudice. The state cannot impose conditions on someone that wasn't found guilty.

In fact, as his attorney mentioned, he doesn't have a conviction since some tobacco thing 30 years ago. If overturned convictions don't count.

Star mob witness is both disappointed and satisfied

Jeremy Roebuck Inquirer Staff Writer
January 29, 2014 10:25 AM


The trial is over, but Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello isn't done talking.


In an interview Wednesday, the outspoken former mob associate and star government witness against reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi, said he was disappointed in the outcome of their racketeering retrial, which ended last week without a guilty verdict against either man.

But, Monacello said, he is not sorry for the role he played in it.

"I'm happy with the 30 months in jail I gave Ligambi and Borgesi for screwing me over," he said, referring to the time both men spent behind bars in the run-up to their trial. "I did the right thing by the mob and got screwed."

MORE COVERAGE
There will be wine: Ligambi released, family rejoices

He added: "This couldn't have worked out better. Not only do I never have to deal with these guys, I never have to take the witness stand again."

Monacello, 47, emerged as one of the most colorful witnesses in the case against Ligambi, 74, and Borgesi, 50.

During days on the stand last year, he regaled jurors with tales of his time working for Borgesi, while Borgesi served out a federal prison term on a previous racketeering conviction.

Monacello testified that he ran Borgesi's illegal gambling and loan sharking operations and sent his boss up to $40,000 a year in proceeds through deposits in his prison commissary account and cash-stuffed envelopes left in the car glove box of Borgesi's wife, Alyson.

He agreed to testify, he said in court, once he began hearing rumblings that Ligambi and Borgesi were plotting to have him killed. (Lawyers for both men have denied the accusation.)

But Monacello's style - confident, bordering at times on cocky - and frequent digs at his former colleagues from the witness stand drew the ire of defense attorneys, who frequently attacked his credibility.

Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jacobs Jr., referred to Monacello and other mob turncoats who testified as "walking, talking embodiments of reasonable doubt" during his opening statements to jurors in November.

He later described them as "the most unsavory, unreliable arch-criminals who have ever been assembled in one courtroom."

During Ligambi and Borgesi's first trial in 2012, Monacello's one-time right-hand man, Frank "Frankie the Fixer" DiGiacomo, called into question much of Monacello's testimony.

And his stints on the stand often prompted whispered curses from the courtroom gallery from Anthony Borgesi, George's brother.

Monacello testified that he and Anthony had often clashed over Monacello's role running his brother's rackets.

With typical bravado Tuesday, Monacello fired back.

"They had no choice but to take shots at me," he said. "I'm the main guy from South Philly that took the stand against them. What other recourse did they have?"

Ultimately, though, two juries found Monacello's testimony unconvincing.

On Friday, the latest panel to hear the case acquitted Borgesi and said it could not come to a unanimous verdict against Ligambi.

Borgesi was released from federal detention on Friday. Ligambi returned home Tuesday after prosecutors opted not try his case for a third time.

For his part, Monacello, said he is sleeping well these days and relaxing at his beach house.

Where exactly that house is, he'd rather not say given the animosity between him and the men against whom he testified, he said.

"I'm great. I never have to deal with Joe or George or their dumb brother Anthony - aka Fredo on steroids - again," Monacello said, referring to Fredo Corleone, the bumbling mobster of the Godfather films. "This is me being me."

Under the terms of his agreement with the government, Monacello pleaded guilty in 2011 to counts of racketeering conspiracy and loan sharking and agreed to testify against his former mob associates. He faces sentencing later this year.

jroebuck@phillynews.com

215-925-2649

@jeremyrroebuck

All the guys is back on the streets, it may not be safe for rats anymore

There is something seriously wrong with that idiot Bent Lou....it's almost like he hopes they come after him.

He's probably got an agent trying to shop a book.

Honestly if someone capped him would it be a huge loss to society?

He's living in the open in Ventnor....he's literally taunting them to come and get him. Fucking unreal...this guy is out of his mind batshit crazy. Either that or he's suicidal.

Not for nothing but Anthony Borgesi is a nice guy. Consider the source when you read what the rat says about him.
He just got his brother back after 14 years cut him a break. That's an awesome jacket too.

It's a tough call. on one hand the arrogant Monacello needs to be dealt with but after what Borgesi and Ligambi have been through it would be such ashamed to ''get this guy'' and somehow get caught.I mean you know who they would look to first,but then again the satisfaction of it all may outweigh that.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014


Some Parting Words From Bent Finger Lou


By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

He said he has no regrets and would do it all over again.

He also said he's glad the U.S. Attorney's Office has opted not to retry Joe Ligambi. Not that he has any great concern for the mob boss. But he does have a personal stake in the matter.

What the decision to drop the remaining charges against Ligambi means, said Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello, "is that I never have to testify again."

In a pointed telephone conversation this afternoon, Monacello looked back on the two trials in which he testified for the federal government and looked forward to life beyond the South Philadelphia mob.

Commenting publicly for the first time, the one-time mob associate displayed the same bravado -- some would call it arrogance -- that he brought to the witness stand in two trials that ended without convictions for either Ligambi or his co-defendant and nephew George Borgesi.

"Tell'em I'm relaxing on the beach," said Monacello, 46, who relocated to the South Jersey shore after he decided to become a cooperating witness. Whether he stays there or moves is an issue that will be decided later, he said.

He still has to be sentenced by Judge Eduardo Robreno, probably sometime in the spring, on a racketeering charge to which he pleaded guilty as part of his cooperating agreement.

Monacello said he's not concerned about going to jail. Jail, he insisted, was never the issue. He cooperated, he said, because Ligambi and Borgesi "screwed me over." And while his testimony didn't result in convictions -- the defense in both cases hammered away at the credibility and motivation of the government's key witness, especially Monacello -- he said he believed his decision to cooperate and help make the case landed both Ligambi and Borgesi in jail.

Both were denied bail after the indictment was handed up in May 2011.

"These two guys screwed me over," he said, "so I guess I gave them 30 months to sit."

Returning to the same points he had made from the witness stand -- and that two juries had largely rejected -- Monacello said he cooperated not because he feared going to jail, but because "I wasn't going to do time for Joe Ligambi and Marty Angelina."

Monacello testified that while running a bookmaking and loansharking operation for Borgesi, who was in jail on a 2001 racketeering conviction, Ligambi and Angelina were constantly horning in on and undermining his business, business that he claimed was generating cash to support Borgesi.

He also took another verbal shot at Borgesi's brother Anthony who, he said, was always "stabbing me in the back even though I was supporting his brother." He referred to Anthony Borgesi as Fredo, the weak-willed Corleone brother in The Godfather saga.

Monacello's take on the Philadelphia mob headed by Ligambi and Borgesi is hardly the stuff of the Mario Puzo novel. It's not about honor and loyalty, he said, but rather money, greed and treachery.

And he admits he was right in the middle of it, making money, busting heads and doing whatever was necessary to survive.

Among other things, Monacello acknowledged, as he had on the witness stand, that he plotted with an associate, Frank "Frankie the Fixer" DiGiacomo to assault Angelina. Monacello was unaware that DiGiacomo was wearing a body wire and cooperating with authorities at the time.

Looking back on it now, he said in a phone conversation this afternoon, "The mistake I made was not cracking Angelina's head open myself" instead of going along with DiGiacomo's suggestion that he, DiGiacomo, hire two thugs to carry out the beating.

Monacello said again that he believed Borgesi was going to kill him "because I broke the rules" by plotting to attack Angelina, a "made" member of the mob.

He told that same story to two different juries in two trials. The first jury found Borgesi not guilty of 13 of the 14 counts he faced. (Ligambi was found not guilty of five of nine.) The second jury, which considered the one remaining counts, acquitted Borgesi of conspiracy. found Ligambi not guilty of witness intimidation and hung on a conspiracy charge and two gambling counts.

Hardly a resounding endorsement of the prosecution's case or of Monacello's testimony. As one anonymous jury told Jeremy Roebuck of the Philadelphia Inquirer, "if the government could have provided us with credible witnesses, maybe things would have been different."

Angelina, Ligambi, Borgesi, Monacello and 10 others were indicted in the racketeering case. Angelina pleaded guilty prior to the start of the trial and was sentenced to six years. Monacello said his own sentencing guidelines were 60 to 72 months and that he could have done the time.

He refused to cooperate in 2008 when he was charged in a Delaware County case that foreshadowed the federal charges that came three years later.

"I didn't do this to get out of going to jail," he said. "That was never the issue. I just decided I wasn't going to do a day for Joe Ligambi or Marty Angelina."

Now he sits back and waits -- for his own sentencing probably and for what comes next for his former partners-in-crime. He believes there are murders -- Ralph Mazzuca, John Casasanto, Raymond "Long John" Martorano -- that can be tied to his former "friends." Whether the government has the will or the evidence and witnesses to make those cases, however, is another question.
Monacello clearly hopes it happens.

"I'm sitting at the beach waiting to see what (Anthony) Nicodemo and (Ron) Galati do," he said of two potential witnesses who are facing a series of criminal problems (Ed note, see yesterday's story.). "There's a racketeering-murder case waiting to happen, and the best part is it doesn't have anything to do with me."

Monacello believes he is done testifying. He also insists he is done with life in the mob.

"I did a lot of bad things," he said in an earlier conversation, "but I never murdered anybody. You have to draw the line somewhere."

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/some-parting-words-from-bent-finger-lou.html

Jeezus even I want someone to whack this prick.

What are the odds, Lou gets any jail time? Judges take into account how useful a government witness's testimony is when decided whether to hand down any jail time. Neither Ligambi or Boregsi were convicted and he had some serious credibility issues.

I think it would be pretty funny if Lou wound up having to serve the same 30 months Joe and George had to do

Lou should be toxic actually down in south jersey - not sure who would be seen with him - believe it or not the SJ shore is like south Philly east - everyone knows everyone. He deserves everything he gets

Lou monacello only reason for ratting was cause he was going to jail, I've seen it 100 times, it's all good playing gangster when the sun is shining, but as soon as the thunder starts they crawl under there bed n ask for help....Fuckin coward pretender Karmas a muthafugga, even for rats!!

What does someone like Lou do at this point? He's a convicted felon plus he's a rat- and it doesn't sound like he entering witness protection.