Thanks to john g for originally posting this.
Top mobster from Ramapo arrested by Rockland DA, FBI
Steve Lieberman
August 7, 2014A top-ranking mob figure from Ramapo was arrested Thursday morning on conspiracy charges involving loan sharking and illegal gambling.
Daniel Pagano, 61, the son of the late Hudson Valley mob boss Joseph Pagano, was arrested at his home in Ramapo, law enforcement sources said. The arrest was made by detectives with the Rockland District Attorney's Office and the FBI.
An alleged associate, Michael Palazzolo, was also arrested. Both men have been indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit extortion. Prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of their assets and property.
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined comment on the case.
Pagano's attorney, Murray Richman of the Bronx, declined comment on the charges but said Pagano would plead not guilty to the charges when arraigned Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court.
Richman, a former New City resident, said Pagano planned to put up his house on Christmas Hill Road as collateral for bail under an arrangement with prosecutors.
Pagano was identified by prosecutors as a captain in the Genovese crime family, "part of a nationwide criminal organization." As a capo, Pagano ran a crew and answered and paid money from the gambling operation to the leaders of the crime organization, they said.
The indictment accuses Pagano and Palazzolo of participating in a conspiracy involving gambling and using threats and extortion to collect money from gamblers.
This is not Pagano's first brush with the law. He was sentenced to nearly nine years in federal prison after being convicted in 1998 of leading a tax scam related to bootleg gasoline sales involving Russian mob figures.
Pagano ran the scam for the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese and Colombo crime families, New Jersey prosecutors said at the time. The scam defrauded the federal government of more than $77 million.
He also served three years in New York state prison from 1990 to 1993 for gambling and loan sharking.
Back in 1983, Pagano was accused of being involvment with African-American activist Al Sharpton in business dealings and drugs. In the 1989 indictment, Pagano was described as a Genovese soldier charged with running the family's Westchester and Rockland loansharking, extortion, and gambling operations. He also was accused of using a bank account of Sharpton's National Youth Movement to launder mob money.
Sharpton has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Pagano's father-in-law, Vincent DeVito, was shot dead dead in 2003 in the back yard of his Airmont house. DeVito had been tied linked to the robbery of $100,000 and jewelry from a millionaire businessman living in Piermont.
No one has been arrested in DeVito's killing.
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/crime/20...ffice/13717371/
