MOB SUSPECT FEARED DEAD

BY JOHN MARZULLI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The feds believe that a reputed Genovese crime captain on trial in Brooklyn could have a very good excuse for missing court: He might have been whacked, sources said yesterday.
Lawrence Ricci, 60, was AWOL from federal court yesterday for the second day in a row, and his lawyer strongly suggested that foul play was involved.

"I do not consider my client's absence to be a voluntary one," defense lawyer Martin Schmukler told the judge outside the presence of the jury.

Ricci, a reputed key player for the crime family on the New Jersey waterfront, is on trial along with two high-ranking officials of the International Longshoremen's Association, Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey.

He was last seen Friday night in Carteret, N.J., borrowing his girlfriend's car, then switching wheels again with a relative.

If Ricci was being followed, it wasn't the feds who were tailing him, sources said.

"It looks like he's not with us anymore," said an investigative source.

The car he was last seen driving has not been found.

Ricci, a dapper dresser who purported to be a dairy salesman, allegedly reported to Tino Fiumara, the reputed head of the Genovese faction in New Jersey.

Rubbing him out would require approval at the highest levels of the crime family.

Ricci, accused of steering an ILA contract to a mobbed-up pharmaceutical company, had been free on a $500,000 bond signed by his sister, who is employed at an ILA local in New Jersey, and his son.

He had faced five years in prison if convicted.

Federal Judge Leo Glasser warned the jury not to draw any "negative inference" from Ricci's absence.

The judge rejected a request from another defense lawyer to adjourn the trial - now in its third week - until Monday on the chance that Ricci turned up in a hospital somewhere.

Originally published on October 13, 2005


Don Cardi

Body in trunk likely mobster's, officials say

BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO
STAFF WRITER
December 1, 2005

Union, N.J. -- A decomposed body believed to be that of a mobster who disappeared in October during his federal trial in Brooklyn was found Wednesday in the trunk of car parked by a New Jersey diner, officials said.

Lawrence Ricci, 60, was eventually acquitted of federal racketeering charges. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation informed Ricci's family that they believe they found his body in the parking lot of the Huck Finn Diner in Union, N.J., said attorney Martin Schmukler.

"The FBI believes it is my client and I know my client's family is feeling relief," said Schmukler, who was representing Ricci in a Brooklyn federal labor racketeering trial when the reputed Genovese crime family captain disappeared.

A spokesman for the FBI couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday. Ricci had borrowed a car from a friend but failed to keep a social engagement when he went missing, said Schmukler.

Ricci disappeared right after Columbus Day during his trial with International Longshoreman Association officials Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey. All three had been accused of wire and mail fraud conspiracy involving the ILA, but they were acquitted last month. Ricci had faced a maximum of 5 years in prison if he had been convicted.

Law enforcement officials said Wednesday the body was found after police investigated the vehicle, which had been parked at the diner for several weeks. A strong odor was coming from the vehicle, one of the officials said.

An employee at the Huck Finn Diner, which is about 13 miles from the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel in Union County, said the car had been parked in the back of the diner for a few weeks.

Official determination about the identity of the body will have to await the results of an autopsy. But Schmukler said Ricci's family feels the uncertainty is now over.

"This is what you call closure," Schmukler said. "I am sad. I liked him. That is really all that matters."

Bad luck, he was acquitted of racketeering a couple of weeks ago and now this..

FBI: Body identified as missing mobster Ricci
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO
STAFF WRITER
December 7, 2005

The decomposed remains found a week ago in the trunk of a car at a New Jersey diner has been positively identified as being the body of missing Genovese crime family captain Lawrence Ricci, an FBI spokesman said Tuesday.

Ricci's body, which was found on Nov. 30 behind the Huck Finn diner in Union, N.J., was identified through a check of dental records Friday, said James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI in New York.

After a wake, Ricci was laid to rest at a cemetery in New Jersey Tuesday, said his former attorney, Martin Schmukler.

"There was quite an outpouring, about a thousand people," Schmukler said about the turnout for Ricci's wake. "He was a very liked guy."

Margolin said that the preliminary cause of death has been listed as gunshot wounds. Ricci sustained two shots to the head and one to the body, he said.

Investigators have three theories about why Ricci was killed, Margolin said. The lead theory centers on remarks Ricci made that the Genovese family was thinking about decimating the leadership of the Philadelphia mob, an idea that the Genovese clan didn't sanction, Margolin said.

It was while he was on trial along with two officials of the International Longshoremen's Association in October that Ricci went missing. There was immediate speculation that Ricci, 60, was the victim of foul play. He was last seen borrowing a car from a relative to attend what is believed to have been a social engagement.

In an ironic twist, Ricci and his two co-defendants, Harold Dagget and Arthur Coffey, were acquitted by a Brooklyn federal jury of wire and mail fraud conspiracy last month.

Margolin said there is also speculation that mob bosses believed that Ricci's killing, along with an earlier discovery of his body during the trial, might have prompted a mistrial. Mobsters may have also been angered by Ricci's failure to take a guilty plea, something other top Genovese family bosses had done in their waterfront cases, he said.