I hate when they call debt collection extortion. No extortion is trying to extract money from people who don't owe anything. But telemarketers and legal debt collectors are free to harass you anytime.

This is key, and was left out of every other news story, from Romanello's lawyer:


“The judge made it virtually impossible, as I’ve been saying all throughout the trial,” he said outside the courtroom, adding that Komitte didn’t let the jury hear voicemails Selimaj left on Romanello’s phone cursing him out after the punch or let him press the steakhouse owner on whether he was trying to bully his client.


Since the owner had been calling Rom and taunting him, the judge should have let that in. I bet the jury quits him if that was allowed in, as it should have been.

The government plays dirty, but shame on those jurors too for not using common sense and sound judgment.

Apparently, it was one of those "Irish hoodlums" who got the old man involved in the first place.

Lol. It's extortion because it's not a real debt. It's illegal gambling, the only thing that says you have a right to get paid is your threat of violence if you don't. Otherwise you could sue....

I'm pretty fascinated by the hipocracy I've noticed with this case. If this dumb 80 year old goes and punches a guy on camera, ( where the fuck are the goons/ associates?) it's discrimination? Then what is letting Senter out? Favoritism? Lol


This guy balks at paying, he's a deadbeat. But Merlino practically made a racket out of it, and people love him...go figure.....

Thats not exactly true, Cabrini.

It makes absolutely no difference, whatsoever, whether the debt in question was generated from illegal activity owed to a mobster, or it was a legitimate debt owed to a business. It is the alleged method of "collection" thats the problem.

If you had a clothing business and sold a shipment of clothes to a customer, and that client reneged on his debt to you, and then you attempted to use strong arm methods or intimidation to get paid....that would also be extortion.

To the contrary...

if you were in the illegal drug business and sold a kilo of cocaine to a customer, and likewise he reneged on payment to you, and you later repeatedly went to him seeking payment but didn't use what is considered to be "strong arm methods" or intimidation to get your money, then you couldn't be charged with extortion.

You might be charged with drug trafficking, but NOT extortion. Understand what I'm trying to say?

According to law yes it's extortion, but laws aren't always logical. I'm looking at it logically, and to me trying to collect on a debt through physical methods isn't extortion. Pay your debts or don't gamble and borrow.

Maybe assault in aid of illegal gambling would make more sense?

Clearly those two bettors were bums and schemers, figuring if they win they'll get paid, and if they lose, tough luck, they stiff the bookie.

But our personal opinions aside, what the G accused these guys of, whether true or false, is, "technically," on the penal books as extortion.

Think most people can relate to what you guys are talking about how if you make a bet and lose its not extortion when they come calling to collect. The difference in this case is they didn't go to the people who racked up the debt. They went to a relative that wasn't even involved in the gambling and threatened him to pay it and that is straight up extortion.

Nothing I can think of tells me the MOB is dead more than this case. Let me get this straight, in 2017 this whole thing goes down. In over 6 years, there was zero opportunity for the MOB to handle this, so it never goes to trial. No one in the Genovese family could figure out a way to make this go away? I've said it for years and have been called every name in the book on this sight for saying it, the MOB is dead. These guys may commit crimes and steal everything in sight but the MOB as history has established is dead. You have to figure in 6 years someone would have wanted to make "their bones" to eventually be put up to be made. But obviously that didn't happen and isn't a requirement anymore if it really ever was. The families are nothing more than a group of criminals but not a true family. The victim and his family testified against him. LOL

I was actually thinking the same thing, they had 6 years to take care of this thing and didn't do shit.

Comments like this though tend to aggravate me. This is from Reddit: 20th Century criminals trying to operate in the 21st Century/ with predictable results.

This stupid shit implies that wiseguys going down and being convicted of racketeering and extortion etc is anything new. Even in the mob's so-called heyday of the 1960s and 70s guys still were going down for racketeering. What's new though is the mob doing absolutely nothing about any of it. No more witness intimidation, no more midnight assaults, no more killings because they're so afraid of prison time. Now if that's the angle you wanna shoot for, I'll support it.

This is the type of guys the mob needs today: "The Eagle’s go-to guy, Mazzola, was implicated in 3 murders. To collect gambling debts, Mazzola put a gun in the mouth of one Robert Lipani, threatening to pull the trigger. On another occasion Mazzola threatened to kill his own stepfather. And he destroyed his doctor's office upon learning he would be indicted for extortion."

And don't give me this BS about how they can't do that because of surveillance and prison blah blah blah, mobsters hardly use serious violence anymore and they still go to prison, so what difference does it make.

Again, if this were introduced as it should have been, he would have walked. This was a B.S. case. The guy was calling him and taunting him, he barley touched the guy, and gets time. The judge is the newest in line of totally pro prosecution federal judges.

That whole assault over racial slurs defense turned out to be a disaster for Romanello. Maybe not the best angle or rather card to play. He should've just taken a guilty plea, everything was on tape! If ever there was a plea deal case, this was it.

Did the government really waste a bunch of money on something this ridiculous from 6 years ago? And was he free during that time? I've been curious how this stuff works.

He punched a guy in the mouth! Big fkin deal! Why the fuck is our tax dollars going to locking this guy up? What point does this prove?

And from what it appears to me they spent 6 years on it lol.

Pathetic!!