https://nypost.com/2005/06/20/1m-bid-to-join-mafia-dumbguys-bribe-snubbed/

$1M BID TO JOIN MAFIA – DUMBGUY’S BRIBE SNUBBED

By Murray Weiss

June 20, 2005 | 4:00am

A longtime Mafia associate – frustrated at being passed over for induction into the mob – offered $1 million to the Gambino crime family if they made him a wiseguy, The Post has learned.

Leonard Minuto Sr., 64, whose gambling and loan-sharking operation has earned millions of dollars for the Gambinos, purportedly went from capo to capo and even went to Arnold Squitieri, the family’s acting head, in a bid to get his button.

Despite making what he thought was an offer they couldn’t refuse, the mob family did, snubbing him at every turn, according to sources familiar with thousands of hours of secretly recorded government tapes.

Minuto’s unprecedented million-dollar bid to join the mob surfaced during a recent federal investigation that centers on an iron-nerved undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the Gambino hierarchy for three years.

Using the moniker of Jack Falcone, the undercover wore a recording device during thousands of hours of conversations with a host of bosses and their associates in the greatest penetration of the mob since Joseph Pistone pretended to be “Donnie Brasco” nearly three decades ago.

Ironically, “Falcone” – who in real life is Hispanic and not Italian – was so convincing that Gregory DePalma, a 73-year-old capo who infamously posed with Frank Sinatra at the Westchester Premier Theater in 1976 – put Falcone, not Minuto, up for induction into the family.

Minuto’s lawyer, Murray Richman, denied that the convicted gambler tried to buy his way into the Gambino family.

“In listening to the tapes, the only conclusion I can come to is that this is gossip – mob gossip – and, judging from the sources, you must evaluate the information based upon the persons making the statements,” Richman said.

About a year ago, several wiseguys were heard talking about how Minuto, a key moneymaker in The Bronx, groused about being passed over when there was a rare family opening, sources say.

Minuto’s $1 million offer did him no good, apparently because the mob believed he did not have the nerve and penchant for violence to be a full-blown hood, sources said.

Minuto, who was also convicted in the “Junior” Gotti case, eventually got his plea to Squitieri, who was made the family’s acting boss in June 2002.

Minuto and his son are free on bail.