Lou ignore his bullshit glad youre back … who is Michael Grasso mentioned in the article? Never heard that name before i assume not a made guy?
quote=Louiebynochi]Some of the guests at Frank Narducci's wedding reception last September were family - members and associates of Philadelphia's Angelo Bruno crime family. Atlantic City has traditionally been part of their turf, but as the resort declined, so did the profits to be made there. The legalization of casino gambling, however, opens up lucrative possibilities for organized crime, and some of the guests at the bright yellow tables in the Philadelphia Sheraton's Grand Ballroom may have been celebrating not only a marriage, but also the money they expect to roll in from the action in Atlantic City. Many had made or were arranging significant investments in the New Jersey resort. The celebrants:
The frail, 67-year-old man seated at one of the tables was Angelo Bruno, identified by law?enforcement authorities as the family's boss and a member of organized crime's national council. In his more vigorous years, Bruno compiled a record of arrests for receiving stolen property, and dangerous?drug, lottery and gambling violations. Re- cently he spent nearly three years in prison on a criminal?contempt charge for refusing to testify before the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation.
Out of jail now, Bruno works for John's Wholesale Distributors Inc., Philadelphia company that distributes cigarettes to retailers and vending-machine companies. One of his employers enthusiatically describes him as “supersalesman.” In addition, accord. ing to Lieut. Daniel McFadden, head of the Philadelphia Police Department's Organized Crime Unit, Bruno has “very lucrative” illegitimate business concerns such as gambling, numbers and “large?scale crap games,” plus “definite interests in casinos in England and the Bahamas.”
“I don't want to own the [Atlantic City] casinos,” Bruno told an S.C.I. investigator, “I want to service them.” Just two weeks after New Jersey voters approved casino gambling in the resort, John's Wholesale acquired an Atlantic City luxury?tax cigarette license. Since then more than 90 vending-machine accounts have switched to Bruno's firm, resulting in an antitrust civil suit charging “a conspiracy which has the purpose and effect of achieving monopoly in the vending?machine market.”
Seated at another table at the Narducci wedding were two of the executive officers of John's — Raymond Martorano and his brother John. Raymond, whose real name is lgnatio but who is generally called Long John, is considered by the F.B.I. to be “very high up in the family.” It's a sign of his prominence that he sometimes acts as Bruno's driver. The president of John's is, in effect, a chauffeur for its supersalesman.
Long John Martorano is also a convicted narcotics dealer with financial interests in more than a half?dozen legitimate businesses, ranging from discount drugstore to Doggie Island, mobile food stand in Philadelphia. These companies, according to the S.C.I., are just a few of the concerns he monitors as a soldier in charge of the Bruno business empire, which law-enforcement authorities believe — but have not proved — extends a lot farther than cigarette machines and hot?dog stands. In 1974, for example, while in London, Martorano was arrested by Scotland Yard along with a vice president of the Las Vegas Tropicana Hotel on information that he was involved in skimming money from a London casino. No formal charges were filed, howand both released.
It was Long John Martorano who ar- ranged a meeting between Bruno and an Atlantic City police officer in September 1976. According to a confidential police report, Detective Sgt. Angelo Cibotti was unaware whom he was meeting until he was seated next to Bruno in a private room at Atlantic City's Lido Restaurant. The purpose of the get?together, the sergeant said, was to discuss whether the vending company in which he (Cibotti) has an interest might replace its current cigarette distributor with John's. But, the sergeant told investigators, as soon as he saw Bruno seated with his wife, Susan, in the back room, “It was all small talk. Besides, I just wanted to eat and get out
The Atlantic City Police Department cleared Sergeant Cibotti of any wrongdoing in meeting with Bruno. This was the second internal?affairs investigation which has exonerated the officer, who was an unindicted co?conspirator in a recent kickback and extortion scandal involving a former mayor of Atlantic City and the detective's brother-in-law, former Atlantic City Public Works Commissioner Arthur W. Ponzio. But at least one state agency is still investigating the meeting.
Two members of the wedding party eating off solid gold plates on the dais of the Grand Ballroom had also attempted to open a business in Atlantic City. The 24-year-old groom, Frank Narducci Jr., and 21-year-old Salvatore A. Testa formed a corporation that purchased for $250,000 Le Bistro Club, a nightclub which is close by the Atlantic City Convention Hall as well as two proposed gambling casinos. The financing for the deal, Narducci told investigators, was obtained from “a wholesale jeweler who was a very good friend of the family.” Their families were what troubled the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division of the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, which, after a lengthy investigation, prohibited the transfer of the liquor license to the club's new owners, though neither aphas a criminal record.
Young Testa's father, Philip (Chicken Man) Testa, has been identified by the S.C.I. as the Bruno family's underboss. Arrested 11 times by the Philadelphia police and convicted once for violating gambling ordinances, he spent part of 1973 and all of 1979 in prison after refusing to answer questions posed by a Philadelphia grand jury investigating organized crime. The groom's father, Frank T. Narducci, has been arrested 18 times and convicted on three occasions on gambling charges. Last year a Federal District Court entered a default judgment against him for $273,316 when he did not appear to defend himself against civil charges of evading income and wagering taxes from
Law?enforcement officials are concerned that the illegal gambling and loan?sharking in which, according to F.B.I. affidavits, these men and Bruno are involved will spread to Atlantic City once the casinos open. Already, according to the F.B.I., Bruno family associates are acting as loan sharks for gamblers 2,500 miles away in Las Vegas; it is unlikely they will hesitate to expand their operations a mere hour's drive away from Philadelphia.
These loan?sharking operations are controlled, according to the S.C.I., by another guest at the Narducci wedding, Frank Sindone. A husky, baldish man, Sindone normally converses in a quiet voice which he raises only in the course of conducting business. He raised it when talking over the telephone in November 1970, to Sidney Benjamin, a
Philadelphia businessman. According to an F.B.I. transcript of the call, Sindone warned Benjamin, “I'll break your back for you if you don't bring me my money. . . . I'll pull your eyes right out of your head.”
Was it unfair to penalize the young Narducci and Testa because of the activities of their fathers and their fathers’ associates? Atlantic City Police Chief William tenBrink said, “You can't deny them a [liquor] license solely because of the sins of their fathers.” But the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division also had access to a confidential surveillance report which noted that the young partners had proceeded from a meeting with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commissioner to a barbecue at the Atlantic City home
Little Nickie Scarf() is considered by New Jersey State Police to be “a high?ranking member of the Bruno organization.” Not surprisingly, he, too, was a guest at the Narducci wedding. Scarfo has served time for manslaughter and for contempt when he refused to testify before the S.C.I. He is currently being in- vestigated for his role as “hidden investor” in at least three Atlantic City bars and one motel — recent expansions, police believe, of the Bruno empire into Atlantic City.
Another wedding guest, Angelo Bruno's nephew, Michael Grasso Jr., is also being investigated as a source of financing for these additions to the Bruno family's Atlantic City properties. He has been identified by the S.C.I. as the coordinator of the Bruno family's real?estate holdings. Police describe the 40?ish Grasso as a “financial wizard,” a typical second?generation family member who shuns the rougher, illegal businesses of gambling, loan?sharking and narcotics for the more sophisticated and equally lucrative areas of real estate and mortgage financing. Not all of his concerns are legitimate, however: He is currently serving a six?month sentence for an in- surance?fraud scheme.
A confidential Pennsylvania Crime Commission report lists Grasso as an officer of four realty companies and as “possibly affiliated” with 24 other firms, including a savings-and-loan association and a mortgage company which has recently made investments in Atlantic City. The 1971 report concluded: “By means of the various corporations with which Grasso is affiliated, his interests have spread to construction companies, nursing homes, motels, office buildings, yacht clubs, shopping centers, banks and apartment complexes. In addition, Grasso has obtained control of legitimate businesses by foreclosing on mortgages held by affiliated companies.” Now Grasso's interests, like those of other members and associates of the Bruno family, have spread to Atlantic City, where he has been a real estate agent.[/quote]
