This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Santa's Made A List And Checked It Twice; No Christmas Gifts On The Waterfront

Gang Land Exclusive!T'is the week before Christmas, and in a fitting tribute to the season, a Genovese mobster and two ousted dockworkers' union executives have agreed to plead guilty to a Christmastime extortion scam that the powerful crime family ran on the New Jersey waterfront for more than 30 years, Gang Land has learned.

Genovese soldier Stephen (Beach) Depiro and two former International Longshoremen's Association executives — Albert (Bull) Cernadas, the former president of Local 1235, and Nunzio LaGrasso, the ex-vice president of Local 1478 — are slated to cop plea deals to extortion conspiracy and labor racketeering charges tomorrow in Newark Federal Court. The plea agreements have not been filed yet, but sources say they carry recommended prison terms of about three years.

The trio are the last remaining defendants in the only still pending case stemming from the arrests of 127 mob-connected defendants on Mafia Takedown Day nearly four years ago. The case was a throwback to the bad old days of On the Waterfront-style schemes in which mobsters and their designated union stooges preyed on hard-working laborers. The indictment alleges that the Genovese family employed a "systemic use of actual and threatened force, violence and fear" to extort about $3 million in "Christmas tributes" from longshoremen beginning in 1982. Actually, the feds say the scheme began years earlier, but the indictment only goes back to when Cernadas got involved after he took over as president of Local 1235.

Depiro, 59, was also just the latest in a long line of Genovese family mobsters in the waterfront shakedowns. Depiro began overseeing his crime family's control of the New Jersey piers in 2005 when his predecessor, soldier Lawrence Ricci, was whacked while he was on trial for labor racketeering along with three other union leaders of the scandal-tarred ILA, according to the indictment. Former powerhouse capo Tino Fiumara, who succumbed to cancer in 2010, ordered Ricci's demise and appointed Depiro to succeed the slain soldier, according to court papers.

Cernadas, who doubled as an ILA international vice president for many years, allegedly was involved in the scheme from 1982 until he retired in 2005. For several of those years, Cernadas, 79, earned more than $500,000 a year from the two union posts. In 2004, his gross income was $532,000, according to ILA filings with the Department of Labor.

LaGrasso, a cousin of Depiro's, was also an international ILA vice president for many years, and in 2010, receive $255,000 in union salaries, according to court records. LaGrasso, 69, received extortion payoffs during the Christmas season, from 1989-1990 until 2009-2010, according to the indictment. In 2009, LaGrasso and 16 relatives, including five who were hit with various crimes in recent years, earned about $1.9 million in various waterfront-related jobs, according to testimony before the Waterfront Commission.

The FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and Newark began zeroing in on the "Christmas tributes" scheme after the FBI snared longtime fugitive capo Michael (Mikey Cigars) Coppola talking to Edward Aulisi, then a member of ILA Local 1, and the son of then-Local 1235 president Vincent (The Vet) Aulisi in 2007, about Yuletide payments going back to 1970. Vincent Aulisi took over as president when Cernadas stepped down in 2005 after pleading guilty to mail fraud charges in Brooklyn Federal Court that involved both the Genovese and Gambino crime families.

During the taped conversation, Coppola discussed Christmas payoffs going back to 1970, using code words "Vet, Bull and Cong" to refer to Aulisi, Cernadas and their predecessor, Vincent Colucci. Colucci's nickname derived from his initials, V.C., shorthand for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War era, when he was in power.

In addition to Coppola's taped talks, co-prosecutors Anthony Mahajan, of the Newark U.S. Attorney's office, and Jacquelyn Kasulis, of Brooklyn, also had conversations between Depiro and Fiumara that were recorded in 1998, when Mikey Cigars was on the run from a murder charge, that link Depiro to the Christmastime payoffs.

And according to court filings, the prosecutors also had more than 25 longshoremen who had agreed — some under duress and not so willingly — to testify about payments they gave to Cernadas, LaGrasso, Aulisi and numerous other union officials over the years. The extortion payoffs were sought when workers received end-of-the-year bonus checks known officially as "Container Royalty Fund" checks.

Referred to as "Christmases" by Coppola, the payoffs — up to $2000 from each longshoreman — were collected by union officials and then passed on to Depiro and his predecessor mobsters who were all under Fiumara's ultimate control since the 1980s, according to court records.

Another important bundle of evidence that convinced the three main honchos in the indictment to follow the lead of the other 15 defendants was a load of $51,900 in cash that was collected in 2009 and buried in the back yard of a longshoreman and dug up the following April by agents with Department of Labor when the dockworker decided to cooperate and told the feds about it.

The cash had been collected by Local 1235 business agent Robert Ruiz who gave it to the longshoreman for safekeeping rather than pass it on to Depiro at Christmastime because "there was a lot of heat" in the years following Coppola's arrest and the public disclosure of his tape recorded remarks about the Christmastime payoffs.

Prosecutors Mahajan and Kasulis declined to comment about the planned guilty pleas. And lawyers for the trio did not respond to Gang Land requests for comment.

Ruiz, Vincent Aulisi, and Thomas Leonardis, the Local 1235 president at the time the indictment was filed, all pleaded guilty earlier this year. Newark Federal Judge Claire Cecchi gave Ruiz, 56, 20 months behind bars. The judge sentenced Aulisi, 82, to 18 months and fined him $10,000. Leonardis, 57, was sentenced to 22 months in prison. Ruiz and Aulisi are each slated to be released in March of 2016. Leonardis isn't slated to begin serving his sentence until after Christmas.

Edward Aulisi, 55, pleaded guilty to labor racketeering charges two years ago. Sentenced to 30 months, he had a year cut from his sentence for completing a Bureau of Prisons substance abuse program, and was released into a Newark halfway house in June. He's been confined to his home since then. It's not clear whether Santa will be stopping by, but Aulisi will have time for last minute Christmas shopping, since he'll be officially released from BOP custody on Monday, three days before Christmas.



Judge Lectures Genovese Capo About The Niceties Of Crime And Punishment

A powerful mobster stood up in court at his sentencing last week to say what gangsters often say when facing the music: He wanted to apologize to his wife and family for letting them down. In fact, he said, he was "sorry for the whole thing."

And then the judge exploded.

"You need to apologize to this country," thundered Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis. "You need to apologize to America, and frankly your behavior disgusts me."

The gangster in question, Genovese capo Conrad Ianniello, who was facing sentencing on a labor racketeering conviction, and his attorney, seemed stunned. But Garaufis kept going, lecturing the hapless wiseguy the way a teacher might scold a belligerent student who had just mouthed off in class.

"I'm tired of watching mobsters come into this courtroom and apologize to their families when they should apologize to their country," the judge said.

Defense lawyer Lisa Scolari tried to deflect the judge's anger by stating that her client was "prepared to apologize to …" But the judge wouldn't hear it.

"He had his chance," continued Garaufis. "When someone comes in here with this record, and threatens people like that, in a free country, I don't want to hear that he's sorry for his family," the judge continued. "I want to talk about what he's doing to our country — him and his fellow mobsters."

The judicial eruption began after Garaufis gave Ianniello, 71, an opportunity to speak on his own behalf before he was sentenced for terrorizing an official of a small independent union. But while Ianniello apologized for the trouble he had caused his family, he offered no words of remorse to his victims.

And Garaufis, who had already sentenced ten co-defendants in the case, including two cohorts were involved in the union shakedown, thought Ianniello had a few apologies to offer.

In the spring and summer of 2008, as the FBI listened in, Ianniello instructed mob associate Ryan Ellis, a burly 300-pound enforcer, to threaten a union leader to stop an organizing drive at a Long Island chocolate factory because Ianniello wanted the workers to join a union that he controlled.

In one discussion, Ianniello said he would try to settle the dispute with the secretary treasurer of Local 621 of the United Construction Trades and Industrial Employees Union "diplomatically" but warned Ellis to be ready for action because "if that don't work, then I am going to fuck him up."

Gaurafis knew the story well. The judge had already sentenced Ellis, and Ianniello's union leader of choice, Robert Scalza, the disgraced secretary treasurer of Local 713 of the International Brotherhood of Trade Unions, for their roles in the scheme.

"It's clear from the wiretaps that you were just strong arming this local and you just wanted your way," said Garaufis. "It's bad for America, and you're bad for America."

Scolari again tried to come to her client's defense, in a most unusual way for a mob lawyer, by informing on the rival union, which has ties to the Colombo crime family. "The union wasn't run by civilians..." she began. But Garaufis cut her off.

"You don't threaten to bust up somebody. I'm not here to talk about the other union," said Garaufis, adding that if Scolari wanted to impart any negative information regarding the union she should contact the National Labor Relations Board.

"The problem here is that these crimes are insidious," the judge said. "If the Court doesn't treat this as an extremely dangerous situation when organized crime figures try to influence the lawful process of organizing a workplace with a labor union, then the rights of many people are adversely affected."

In the end, however, Ianniello didn't fare too badly on the most important issue — his sentence. His recommended prison term for the union extortion, bookmaking and shaking down San Gennaro Festival vendors was between 33 and 41 months. And despite his angry words, Garaufis split the difference, giving Ianniello three years behind bars, and three more years of supervised release.

But Ianniello's sentence was much stiffer than those Garaufis meted out to his partners in crime, Ellis, 32, and Scalza, 69. Ellis received a year and a day in prison; Scalza got six months of home confinement.

Perhaps that explains why the gangster was in a testy mood outside the courthouse and snapped, "I'm gonna drop you on your head" to New York-based free lance photog Kevin C. Downs.

"Think he might've developed a hernia," cracked the Irish-born Downs, who told Gang Land that he tips the scales at "about 19.5 stone" which translates to a pound or two north of 270.



Gambino Underboss Frank Cali Was NOT Arrested Last Week

Contrary to news headlines and stories you may have seen, heard or read last week, Gambino underboss Frank Cali has not been arrested, and he is not on his way to Italy to fight drug and weapons trafficking charges that are related to the two-country crackdown earlier this year that led to the arrests of 24 gangsters in the U.S. and Italy.

The arrested mob associate who was incorrectly identified in several news reports as the Gambino family underboss is really a Sicilian-born gangster named Francisco Palmeri, who is older, shorter, and as you can plainly see from their photos, a bit chubbier than Cali, 49.

This is not to say that the 61-year-old Palmeri, an Italian citizen who is also a naturalized U.S. citizen, is a penny ante criminal. According to charges lodged in Italy, Palmeri tried to extort 1 million Euros from the managing director of a major electric company in Italy last year. He is fighting extradition and is detained pending a bail hearing Monday in Manhattan Federal Court.

A second suspect in the same extortion attempt, Michele Amabile, was arrested on the same day. Amabile, according to court papers, is an alleged co-founder of an 'Ndrangheta cell in New York with Raffaele (Lello) Valente, who was indicted in February on weapons charges in Brooklyn in the U.S. part of the dual probe by the FBI and Italian authorities.

Amabile's lawyer, Michael Considine, argued that his client, a naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in the U.S. since 1999, and currently resides on Long Island with his wife, was not a flight risk or a danger to the community and asked that he be released on bail pending an extradition hearing.

Prosecutors Kristin Mace and Kevin Trowel countered that bail was not an option in virtaually all n extradition cases, and even if it was, Amabile was a dangerous thug who telephoned an ex-girl friend in 2005 and "threatened to kill her, chop her up, and put her in a wheelchair" and should be held without bail.

Following a hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate judge Vera Scanlon declined to find that Amabile was a danger to the community, but decided that he was a flight risk and ordered him detained for up to the statutory 45-day limit as Italy moves to extradite him to Italy to stand trial for drug and extortion charges.

Meanwhile, Cali — whom the feds have identified as a close associate of Franco Lupoi, the accused drug kingpin and the only remaining defendant in the U.S. case — remains the free as a bird reputed underboss of the Gambino crime family, getting ready to enjoy the Christmas holidays.



(Credit effthechef from Real Deal for posting the full weekly column by Capeci.)