Oh what a tangled web they weave, when Uncle Sam practices to deceive...


This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Feds Have Second Thoughts About FBI Operative In Mob Garbage Case
Gang Land Exclusive!Carmine FrancoThe office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is having second thoughts about its prime witness in what was to be a blockbuster case charging 29 mobsters and associates from three crime families with labor racketeering in the garbage business in New York and New Jersey.

Make that more second thoughts.

Gang Land has already revealed that FBI informer Charles Hughes only agreed to cooperate after he was caught trying to line up a sex date with a 15-year-old girl who turned out to be a fed trolling for perverts on the internet. And that the feds gave sweet plea deals to mobsters to keep Hughes off the stand. But now prosecutors are reviewing allegations raised by defense lawyers that Hughes also secretly stole valuable roll-off garbage containers and thousands of dollars during the three year federal probe of the mob and the waste hauling industry. After initially flatly denying the allegations against the witness, prosecutors abruptly announced last week that they were taking another look at the defense charges against the undercover operative.

Prosecutors disclosed those intentions in a June 3 letter to Manhattan Federal Judge P. Kevin Castel that requested a "brief adjournment" of the sentencing of Anthony Bazzini, a Gambino mobster who pled guilty to making two threatening phone calls to Hughes about the thefts in 2011. Defense lawyers, who had indicated they would further detail their corruption charges against the already tarnished witness at Bazzini's sentencing that had been set for June 4, agreed to the delay.

Sources say Hughes, a longtime low-level member of the waste hauling industry, began cooperating after his 2008 arrest by members of the FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force for soliciting sex with a minor at an Elmsford, NY motel when he showed up with a supply of condoms for what he thought would be a tryst with the teen.

Anthony BazziniIn court papers, defense lawyers Raymond Perini and Michael Castronovo had argued that Bazzini, whose suggested sentencing guidelines are 12-to-18 months in prison, deserved a much more lenient sentence — probation — because sentencing statutes permit judges to consider the misconduct of cooperating witnesses as mitigating factors in favor of the defendant.

The attorneys stated that two independent witnesses — a New York contractor and a New Jersey homeowner — had linked Hughes to the theft of $3100 in garbage collection fees. Additional material that the government turned over to the defense on the eve of the scheduled start of trial in January also implicated Hughes in the theft of two waste bins worth about $40,000, the lawyers allege.

That scam is what "led to Bazzini's criminal conduct," the lawyers wrote. Their client, they state, only got "upset" in the first place because he had convinced a pal who owned a carting company named Galaxy of Long Island to enter into what turned out to be a "phony business opportunity" with the FBI operative.

In their initial reply, prosecutors Brian Blais and Patrick Egan dismissed the allegations.

"The government denies that CW-1 engaged in unauthorized illegal conduct," wrote the prosecutors, noting that "CW-1's actions were supervised on an intensive basis by his handling agents, including by physical surveillance on an almost daily basis." (Hughes has been identified as CW-1 in court filings and in open court before Bazzini and mob associate Scott Fappiano copped guilty pleas in January, but prosecutors do not name him in their papers.)

It was true, the prosecutors wrote then, that Hughes had "two Galaxy of Long Island containers moved" to a storage yard of a company named Galaxy of New Jersey. And it was true as well, they conceded, that the owner of that firm "had a relationship with (Hughes)." But it was all okay, they said, because everything was done "with full knowledge of the agents … who were conducting what was essentially daily surveillance of CW-1's movements and activities."

Judge P. Kevn CastelFurthermore, the feds insisted that Hughes and his pal at Galaxy of New Jersey were not planning to steal the roll-off containers, as Bazzini claimed. He had only moved them there at the request of a customer. And even then it was solely "as a temporary storage measure" until Galaxy of Long Island "could retrieve them," which the company eventually did.

That position was already a major change from the way the feds told it to defense lawyers last year in both a meeting and June 2013 letter, however. Back then, court records show, the feds insisted that Hughes "had no role in taking the containers" in the first place. Moreover they stated, he had "no authority" to order their release "to the Galaxy of Long Island driver who came to pick them up" after Bazzini demanded their return.

Also left unexplained was why it took until last November 19, months after the defense team had asked prosecutors about the matter, for Hughes to remember that he did have something to do with the waste bins ending up in the Garden State.

"In the debriefing notes" that were turned over to the defense on the eve of the expected trial of Bazzini and Fappiano, wrote lawyers Perini and Castronovo, "the cooperating witness admitted that he himself had the boxes moved to Galaxy of New Jersey."

Contacted by Gang Land, Perini declined to expand on the defense allegations, or discuss his recent talks with prosecutors regarding Hughes, but said he expects to file an additional sentencing memo today or tomorrow.

Prosecutors declined to comment about the garbage case, or the current status of Hughes.

Records show that Hughes, who was involved in the waste hauling industry for 25 years, was arrested on a federal complaint on August 27, 2008. He pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for sex and other charges on October 8 of 2009, the same year he began wearing a wire for the FBI.

Scott FappianoHis case is still sealed. But according to filings in the garbage case, Hughes was arrested after a three month long sting operation in which he had a series of "sexually explicit" online chats with a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl, and "two recorded telephone conversations with an individual he believed to be the girl with whom he had been chatting online."

Originally arrested on charges that carry a mandatory minimum of 10 years behind bars, Hughes has a cooperation agreement with the feds and is hoping to be rewarded for his undercover work with a much more lenient sentence. Prosecutors and FBI officials declined to say whether Hughes, who was freed on bail during the garbage probe, was remanded after his undercover work ended, and when they plan to sentence him. He is not expected to ever testify.

Meanwhile, prosecutors have decided to dismiss charges against seven of the original 29 defendants, and are expected to also move to drop charges against the three remaining defendants who did not agree to plea deals. All told, 19 defendants, including aging mob garbage kingpin Carmine (Papa Smurf) Franco, have pleaded guilty to various charges in the case.