heres the exceprt from this weeks GL column for those of you who don't have a subscription-
Real Life Bada Bing Boss Flips
Gang Land Exclusive!Anthony CardinalleCall it a Bada Bing bonanza for the feds. The owner of the Lodi, New Jersey strip club that served as the setting for The Bada Bing during Tony Soprano's eight and a half year run as the world's most beloved TV mobster, has done the unthinkable: He's become a full-fledged cooperating witness for the feds, a guy that Tony, Paulie Walnuts and the rest of the crew would revile as a rat.
And there's another life-topping-fiction twist: Anthony (Tony Lodi) Cardinalle, who lined his club with posters of Tony Soprano and who posted the words "Thank You Jimmy, Farewell Boss" on the sign outside Satin Dolls, the real-life name for his Route 17 jiggle joint after James Gandolfini's death last June, is himself a real-life gangster.
Gang Land has learned that mob turncoat Cardinalle is associated with the Genovese family's Garden State wing. What's more, he's been plying his trade in the same waste management industry as the fictional mob boss did during the years he was holding court in The Bada Bing.
Cardinalle, 61, is one of 29 defendants who were nailed last year in an FBI probe of the mob's control of the private sanitation industry in New York and New Jersey. Officially, Tony Lodi began cooperating with the FBI and Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office a week before Christmas, but sources say Cardinalle's been talking to the feds for months.
Tony Soprano and Paulie Walnuts at the Bada BingIt's unclear what he's told them so far, but since he's a longtime Genovese associate — and a member of a Lodi-based mob crew that was headed by powerhouse capo Tino Fiumara until his death in September 2010 — the feds are banking on Tony Lodi spilling some heavy secrets about the family's rackets on both sides of the Hudson River.
Cardinalle is one of nine accused leaders of the three-family cabal that controlled private garbage collection routes in five counties in the metropolitan area who pleaded guilty before their racketeering trial was slated to begin last month.
According to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, in July of 2010, Toni Lodi and four other "Lodi Crew" members — including soldiers Peter Leconte and Anthony (Muzzy) Pucciarello — seized control of the waste hauling business that was being operated by the FBI's informer away from the lead defendant in the case, Carmine (Papa Smurf) Franco.
Tape recordings made while the undercover mission was still underway — before Cardinalle flipped — reveal Tony Lodi openly bragging about his clout and his many mob-tied ventures.
Tino FiumaraIn a July 27, 2010 tape, Cardinale was heard pumping up his mob creds by telling the FBI's operative why he needed to be a silent partner in the scheme. "You will never get a garbage license in New Jersey if you mention my name," he said. "You won't. They got a picture of my face up in the Attorney General's Office."
Two weeks later, on August 11, Cardinalle was overheard talking tough to the wired up FBI operative, Charles Hughes — who tape recorded more than 500 conversations between March of 2009 and June of 2012 — about how Hughes could earn some extra cash working for an unidentified mob gambling business.
"I went out of my way for you," Tony Lodi told Hughes, according to court papers filed by prosecutors Brian Blais, Natalie Lamarque and Patrick Egan.
"I don't need my name in the papers," Cardinalle continued. "They have the biggest online gambling companies, they take credit cards and this kid Peter and his boss, they will give you a commission. When they lose they give you 25%, talk to him. They told me do not bring this guy (Hughes) around us unless he is a good guy because we don't need no rat. I told them he ain't a rat, 'cause if he is a rat I will kill him myself."
During that same talk, in an office at one of several clubs Cardinalle owned, according to a transcript obtained by Gang Land, Tony Lodi thanked Hughes for his weekly $500 protection money, and said that a crew member (and later co-defendant) who shared in the payoff, Howard Ross was on his Satin Dolls payroll.
Anthony PucciarelloThe consummate gangster, who spent four months behind bars for tax evasion in 1995, Cardinalle also said he had an aversion to writing things down and talking on the phone.
"Good, give me 500 a week," he began. "That is 3000 you gave me. I don't write it down. I don't talk on that phone, that phone is tapped. The FBI has that number tapped, they always look at my phones for years."
And then Tony Lodi gave a primer on the strip joint business in the Garden State, boasted about his connections with law enforcement — something the feds will surely want to probe.
"I used to be friends with the old prosecutor in North Arlington," he said. "I have a friend with connections in Bellville who runs that whole town. I had a friend that wanted to open a go-go bar and I helped him open the place. I have a friend in every town."
During the two and a half hour discussion, Cardinalle also told Hughes that he recently learned that a bar owner from Paterson had told authorities that no one is allowed to open a strip club unless Toni Lodi was paid off.
"It's a good thing that a friend of mine has a father that is an FBI Agent," he said. "He came to talk to me and I told the guy to tell his father that I am on the level. I don't care who opens a go-go bar. I am going to find who this guy is and I will go to his bar. He shouldn't be telling guys those things."
And in what could be a telling indication of what made him flip, Cardinale's boasts faded away when the subject of prison came up.
"I went to jail once and I have no intention of going back to jail," he told Hughes.
Carmine FrancoWhatever his reasons, his decision to cooperate came even though prosecutors were giving out relatively sweet plea deals, even for major players in the scheme, deals cut in an effort to wrap up the case without having a jury learn that the feds signed up their key informant only after he was arrested for soliciting sex with a 15 year old girl.
Meanwhile, out on Route 17, Bill Pepe, the longtime manager of Satin Dolls, acknowledged to Gang Land yesterday that he knew that Cardinalle had "gone bad" as the Soprano crew would have put it. Offering only short, "yes" and "no" answers, Pepe said "it is business as usual" at the club. And no, Tony Lodi's not concerned about possible retribution from any of his codefendants.
In the real world, however, defense attorney Alan Silber, Manhattan federal prosecutors, as well as Tony Lodi, are very much aware that he is a prime candidate to be whacked. That is spelled out quite clearly in the five-page cooperation agreement he signed on December 19, the day he pleaded guilty to racketeering and extortion charges.
Since his cooperation "is likely to reveal activities of individuals who might use violence, force, and intimidation," the U.S. Attorney's office "will take steps that it determines to be reasonable and necessary to attempt to ensure his safety and that of his family and loved ones," states the signed agreement.
The agreement indicates, however, that before the U.S. Attorney's office contacts the U.S. Marshals Service about a possible relocation for him and his family under the Witness Security Program, Cardinalle will first have to submit a "written request" that details "a significant risk of physical harm."
Cardinalle — unsurprisingly — could not be reached. Silber, the FBI, and U.S. Attorney's office all declined to discuss numerous Gang Land queries about the matter, including whether Tony Lodi could also call for help if he were confronted by a gunman and his pen ran out of ink.
