This crew committed a series of kidnappings of big drug dealers throughout new york, they were split up into two groups based on race the black group that picked the targets and surveilled and the white crew that dressed as police men and snatched the victims off the street for ransom.


BACKGROUND

The present prosecution centered on a kidnaping ring, most of whose targeted victims were highly successful narcotics dealers.   The ring was divided into two “crews.”   One crew, led by Steven Palmer, identified potential victims;  members of the other crew, whose leaders were Ruggiero and Cleary, then impersonated law enforcement officers, purported to arrest the victim, abducted him, and ordered him to raise a ransom.

The government's case was presented principally through the testimony of more than 40 witnesses;  physical evidence, including law enforcement badges, firearms, and handcuffs, seized from Cleary's home or from Ruggiero, Cleary, Aulicino, and other coconspirators;  and tape recordings of conversations between coconspirators and of ransom calls made by Ruggiero to one victim's family.   Three of the witnesses, Derrick Augustine, Albert Van Dyke, and William Conklin, were members of the ring who had participated in the planning or execution of the kidnaping conduct.   The evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the government, was as follows.

A. The Kidnaping Conspiracy

Palmer conceived the kidnaping scheme in 1990.   The group he led included Augustine, Van Dyke, and codefendants James Brown, Keith Green, and Robert Cherry, all of whom were or had been active in drug trafficking in Harlem and the Bronx.   Augustine, who had worked for many of the most successful Harlem drug traffickers, was recruited as a member of this crew to select appropriate kidnaping victims.   Palmer told his crew that he knew men who would pose as law enforcement officers to abduct the victims and extract the ransoms.   For this aspect of the scheme, Palmer called upon Ruggiero and Cleary.   The crew led by Ruggiero and Cleary included codefendants Anthony Castelli, Richard Olivieri, and Michael Palazzolo.   Palmer, Augustine, and other members of their crew met with Ruggiero and Cleary to discuss potential victims and likely ransoms.   They compiled a list of 10 targets.   Over the next several months, seven attempts were made, with varying degrees of success.

Augustine testified that in late 1990 he informed Palmer that a drug dealer named Otmar Delaney was doing an active drug business at a garage in Harlem.   Palmer relayed the information to Ruggiero.   Ruggiero, with an associate apparently identified in the record only as “Tommy,” followed Delaney to his home in Yonkers, New York;  Ruggiero, stating that he was a police officer, approached Delaney and placed him under “arrest.”   Ruggiero and “Tommy” put Delaney into the trunk of their car and took him to a motel in New Jersey.

In the motel room, Ruggiero handcuffed Delaney to a chair and tortured him with a staple gun until he eventually agreed to pay $750,000.   Ruggiero at first used Delaney's cellular telephone to arrange payment of the ransom by Delaney's half-brother.   When the batteries in that telephone went dead, however, Ruggiero left the room to use a public telephone.   In Ruggiero's absence, Delaney told “Tommy” he needed water, and when “Tommy” went to the bathroom to get it, Delaney, still handcuffed to the chair, escaped from the room.   He explained his predicament to a truck driver in the parking lot, and the two went to the motel manager's office to summon the police.   While they were there, Ruggiero entered the lobby, and Delaney retreated, saying that Ruggiero was one of his kidnapers.   With one hand still handcuffed to the chair, Delaney commandeered his benefactor's truck and drove off wildly, with the truck driver clinging to the side.   The truck collided with two other vehicles and came to a stop.   The police arrived;  Ruggiero and “Tommy” had fled.

Members of the ring met to discuss the Delaney fiasco.   Palazzolo assured the Palmer crew that “nothing like that would ever happen again.”  (Trial Transcript (“Tr.”) 348.)   The coconspirators were angry that Delaney had gotten away, and they made new attempts to extort money from him.   Ruggiero and Cleary resumed surveillance of Delaney's garage.   Members of both crews made telephone calls to threaten new kidnaping attempts unless Delaney paid them.   At one point, Ruggiero drove into the garage “[t]o scare them up some, to let them know that they got away but they going [sic ] to get them again [,] and show his face.”  (Tr. 350.)   These postkidnaping extortion attempts apparently ceased when Delaney, with a false promise of payment, lured members of the Palmer crew to a meeting that ended in a shootout.

The next kidnaping victim was Alvin Cassidy Goings, for whom Augustine had sold narcotics for several years.   Shortly after Christmas 1990, Ruggiero, Cleary, Castelli, Olivieri, Palazzolo, and members of the Palmer crew met outside of a laundromat owned by Goings and followed him to other locations in the Bronx.   Eventually, members of the Ruggiero/Cleary crew pulled Goings over to the side of the road, flashing law enforcement badges.   Cleary and Palazzolo took Goings from his car, searched and handcuffed him, and placed him in the ring members' van.   The ring extracted from Goings a sizeable ransom.   Members of the Palmer crew were told by Palmer and the Ruggiero/Cleary crew that the payment was $400,000;  Palmer's crew members believed, based on neighborhood rumors, that the payment might have been as high as $1 million.   Cleary later confided to one witness (see Part II.A. below) that the ransom had been $1 million.   Some of the ransom from this kidnaping was used to purchase and customize sedans to be used in further kidnapings.

On January 26, 1991, ring members kidnaped Roberto Mercedes, who previously had supplied narcotics to Augustine.   Ruggiero, Olivieri, and Palazzolo conducted a close surveillance of Mercedes's sporting goods store, with Cleary and Augustine watching from a greater distance.   After Mercedes left his store and went into a barber shop, Olivieri and Palazzolo entered the barber shop and purported to arrest Mercedes.   They put Mercedes into their car, and, with Ruggiero, drove off.   Ruggiero made numerous ransom calls to Mercedes's family.   Despite Mercedes's being tortured, his brother refused to pay the demanded ransom.   Some members of the ring began to suspect the ransom demands were futile because members of Mercedes's group preferred that he not be returned.

Because Olivieri and Palazzolo were concerned that Mercedes had seen their faces in the barber shop, Palmer ordered Brown to kill Mercedes;  Brown gave Cherry a gun and turned the task over to him.   Cherry transported Mercedes in the trunk of a car to a vacant lot in the Bronx, planning to shoot him there.   When the trunk was opened, however, Mercedes came out kicking;  although shot several times, he escaped and safely reached a police station.   Notwithstanding the decision to kill Mercedes, Ruggiero continued to attempt to collect ransom money from Mercedes's brother;  he was still trying some 10 minutes after Mercedes had reached the police station.   Ruggiero abandoned his efforts when the brother demanded to see Mercedes before making any payment.

The ring next attempted to kidnap a major Harlem narcotics dealer named Richard Simmons, for whom Augustine had worked.   Palmer, Brown, Ruggiero, Cleary, Castelli, Olivieri, and Palazzolo trailed Simmons to a street corner in Harlem, where Ruggiero and Cleary attempted to “arrest” him.   However, Simmons had learned of the attacks on Delaney and Goings and had heard a description of Ruggiero;  when Ruggiero and Cleary approached, Simmons clung to his car and yelled for the police.   The ring members fled.

In February 1991, the ring attempted to kidnap a drug dealer whom Augustine knew only as “Carlos.”   They enlisted the aid of Conklin, who testified that he was offered $5,000 by Olivieri if he would help to “grab” a man off the street.   Conklin went, as instructed, to Olivieri's home where he convened with Olivieri, Palazzolo, and Aulicino.   The four of them drove to Cleary's house in New Jersey;  while Olivieri went into the house, Palazzolo instructed Conklin and Aulicino on how to “get this guy” who was their target.  (Tr. 1161.)   Olivieri and other crew members emerged from Cleary's house and the whole group proceeded to New York City.   Conklin testified that Palazzolo repeated the instructions to Conklin and Aulicino that “all ․ me and Bobby got to do is slide the door open, when we see him, ․ grab him and pull him into the van.”  (Tr. 1167.)   Later, however, when Palazzolo learned that Conklin and Aulicino were to be paid $5,000, he advised them to ask for more because the victim might be killed.

The kidnaping of Carlos never occurred.   When the group drove from New Jersey to a street corner in a New York City “minority neighborhood” where Carlos was expected to be, there were some 30 people there.   The ring members were unable to pick out Carlos and, in any event, did not want to attempt a kidnaping with so many people around.

Next, the ring attempted to kidnap Jorge Davila, a successful numbers banker for whom one member of Palmer's crew had worked.   After at least two planning sessions, members of the two crews met on February 27, 1991, at a Wendy's restaurant near Davila's home in Queens.   Six of the men proceeded in two cars to Davila's house.   Ruggiero, Cleary, and Van Dyke parked across the street from the house;  Palazzolo, Olivieri, and Aulicino parked down the block.   As they waited for Davila to come home, however, the police arrived.   The police first queried Cleary, who was in the driver's seat of the first car.   When Cleary failed to produce either a driver's license or a car registration, and a policeman noticed ammunition on the floor of the car, Cleary, Ruggiero, and Van Dyke were arrested.   Then, when Olivieri and his passengers stealthily approached in the second car, whose license plate was in sequence with the plate on the car driven by Cleary, an officer stopped that vehicle.   When Olivieri likewise could not produce a registration, he was asked to step out of the car.   A pat-down revealed that he was carrying a firearm.   Palazzolo and Aulicino were asked to step out of the car, and a search of the car turned up a loaded and cocked automatic handgun and a bag containing, inter alia, another handgun, a set of handcuffs, and two police shields.   Olivieri, Palazzolo, and Aulicino were then arrested.

On March 31, 1991, ring members kidnaped David Crumpler, a restaurant owner who dealt cocaine in the Bronx.   While Ruggiero, Cleary, and Castelli waited outside of Crumpler's restaurant, Cherry and two other members of Palmer's crew entered brandishing guns and badges and brought Crumpler out in handcuffs.   They took him to a nearby gas station;  he was transferred to the trunk of the car occupied by Ruggiero, Cleary, and Castelli, and was then taken to New Jersey.   Some hours later, Crumpler's wife received a ransom demand for $750,000.   Despite torturing Crumpler with a blackjack, a stun gun, and a staple gun, Ruggiero, Cleary, and Castelli were unable to get Crumpler or his family to pay the ransom.   Ruggiero eventually asked Palmer to come get Crumpler.   Palmer, Augustine, Brown, and crew member Barry Shawn took Crumpler back to New York, and Shawn shot him to death.   Crumpler's handcuffed body was found in a vacant lot in the Bronx.

On April 17, 1991, Palmer was murdered.   Augustine testified that he, Brown, and other Palmer crew members had decided to kill Palmer because they believed Palmer had pointed the finger at them in the Harlem community with respect to the series of kidnapings.   Ruggiero, Cleary, Olivieri, and Palazzolo, however, feared that Palmer might have been killed by one of the kidnaping victims.   A wiretap intercepted anxious conversations between Ruggiero and Cleary speculating that Delaney might have killed Palmer, and between Cleary and Palazzolo speculating that Simmons might have done it.   In a May 22, 1991 telephone conversation with Ruggiero, Augustine attempted to encourage the belief that Palmer had been killed by one of the kidnaping victims.   In addition, in that conversation, Augustine said, “I'm telling you, we need to get smart, man.   One time and then leave this shit alone.”   Ruggiero responded “Yup,” and “Maybe we will.”

The surviving members of the ring attempted no further kidnapings.   Cleary was concerned that his telephone had been wiretapped.  (It had been:  when he called the telephone company in May 1991 and asked how he could find out whether federal agents had tapped his telephone, that conversation was intercepted.)   In another May 1991 intercepted conversation, Ruggiero and Cleary discussed their concern that Van Dyke, who apparently had remained in jail following the Davila-related arrests, might begin to cooperate with the authorities.   In early June 1991, Cleary was arrested in New Jersey on unrelated state charges;  he remained in jail for at least the next several months.   In the summer of 1991, Augustine fled New York, in part, he said, because “the police was [sic ] looking for me, because of, you know, the kidnapping and the murder that was going on in the Bronx.”  (Tr. 304.)

B. The Present Prosecution

Eventually, most of the surviving ring members were arrested;  a 50-count indictment was handed down in September 1992, followed by a 59-count superseding indictment in April 1993.   Defendants were charged with RICO, kidnaping, conspiracy, extortion, murder, and firearms offenses.   Olivieri, Palazzolo, Castelli, and Augustine pleaded guilty to various counts prior to trial.   Brown, Green, and Cherry were fugitives at the time of trial but were later apprehended;  Brown and Green pleaded guilty to the RICO conspiracy count.

Ruggiero, Cleary, and Aulicino were tried in a seven-week trial before an anonymous jury.   Ruggiero and Cleary were convicted of, inter alia, RICO substantive and conspiracy offenses;  various RICO-related offenses;  firearms offenses;  the kidnapings of, and conspiracy to kidnap and extort money from, Goings, Mercedes, and Crumpler;  and conspiracy to kidnap Davila.   Ruggiero was also convicted of the kidnaping of Delaney and conspiracy to kidnap and extort money from him.   Cleary was also convicted of conspiracy to kidnap Carlos.   Ruggiero was acquitted of conspiring to kidnap Simmons and Carlos, extort money from Simmons, and murder Mercedes and Crumpler, and of murdering Crumpler and committing certain firearms offenses.   Cleary was acquitted of conspiring to murder Mercedes and kidnap Simmons.   Aulicino, charged in only seven counts, was convicted of conspiracy to kidnap Davila and was acquitted on the other six counts.   Defendants were sentenced as indicated above.

Related story
anybody who had seen "Paid In Full" or familiar with the Rich ,Azie and Alpo story..



There's a documentary about the "Black Hand of Death" crew out in Harlem who used to rob and extort drug dealers in the 1980s.

won't spoil it for those who aren't aware of the full story....but Black Hand is connected to the story featured in "Paid In Full"


"Son of a Preacher" is name of doc.....full version is on youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MYE7OVPSi8


Actual son(and BH memeber) of the crew's leader, Preacher ,is interviewed and he talks about the crew.....imprisonment, who turned informant, and whether being a "street legend" means anything

Preacher was way more successful in getting his ransoms than this crew i posted. They botched a lot of their jobs, its kind of funny.

Dave cleary has been out for 3 years, he was in Lewisburg, he was able to get his sentence reduced. The whole situation was fucked up and crossed the line in my book, certain shit you just dont do. He is back in bergen county and on the straight and narrow.