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September 22, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Surveillance Video Fingers A Suspect In Michael Meldish Rubout; DNA Tags The Second

Michael MeldishGang Land Exclusive!It took more than a year and a half for the Bronx District Attorney's Office to obtain a murder indictment of two suspects in the November 15, 2013 rubout of longtime mob associate Michael Meldish. But police had identified the accused killers of the onetime leader of the notorious Purple Gang within days of the classic gangland-style slaying, Gang Land has learned.

Meldish, 62, was killed with a single bullet fired into the right side of his head from very close range as he sat behind the wheel of his car in front of 1212 Ellsworth Avenue, near the corner of Baisely Avenue in the Throgs Neck section of The Bronx.

And while the state murder case has been in a state of virtual suspended animation since the duo was charged with the slaying last year, authorities were long aware of the identity of the alleged killers. Law enforcement sources say the NYPD quickly tabbed Luchese soldier Christopher Londonio and mob associate Terrence Caldwell as suspects in the slaying.

The sources say Londonio was fingered first by a couple of mob busting detectives with the Organized Crime Investigation Division (OCID) who were asked for their expertise by the homicide squad. On a surveillance videotape, they spotted a gray car that looked like the Hyundai that Londonio, a known Meldish crony, was known to use. The suspect car was trailing Meldish's own auto just moments before he was shot to death. Days later, investigators found traces of Caldwell's DNA in the death car.

Christopher LondonioThe sources say Caldwell, the alleged trigger man, and Londonio, were also linked to the murder by cell phone calls between the two men on that Friday night.

Police sources say Caldwell, 58, was in the car when he fired the fatal shot, and that Londonio, 42, was the getaway driver in the alleged execution-murder plot.

The law enforcement sources say the videotape that ties Londonio to the murder also shows the same gray car "driving back and forth on Baisely Avenue" before it began following the dark blue Lincoln Town Car that Meldish was driving when his car appeared on the surveillance video a few minutes before the victim was found dead in his car.

Sources say Meldish was bleeding from both his ears and that his body was still warm when police officers got to the murder scene at about 10:20 PM, following a 911 call from a neighbor. The caller's first thoughts were that Meldish might be drunk since driver's side door was open and his left foot was hanging out of the car.

Terrence CaldwellThe sources say assistant district attorney Christine Scaccia agreed to charge both men after Caldwell implicated himself and Londonio in the shooting when detectives questioned him extensively in May of 2015. Until then, sources say, the homicide detectives and the veteran Bronx prosecutor did not believe they had the "probable cause" to seek an indictment.

Sources say the interview lasted several hours and was conducted by 45th precinct detectives Sean O'Leary and Darrell Julien. That contradicts the assertion that Caldwell's court-appointed attorney Larry Sheehan made to Gang Land this past June that his client made no statements, incriminating or otherwise, to authorities about the case.

Sheehan did not respond to numerous telephone requests for comment about the lengthy discussion his client had about the case with detectives, which sources say took place on May 5 of last year, a day before Caldwell was arrested on a complaint by Detective Julien.

Charles CarnesiA month later, Scaccia, who convicted Meldish's brother Joseph of murder in 2011, obtained an indictment charging both men with murder, manslaughter and weapons charges. But the process then dragged out for months as the Bronx ADA failed to turn over so-called "discovery material" about the charges to the defense for more than a year. The reason? Behind the scenes, law enforcement sources say, Scaccia had agreed to defer the case to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office was investigating the mob rubout along with the FBI.

Back then, sources say Bharara's prosecutors had hoped to include Luchese family "street boss" Matthew Madonna as a defendant in a federal racketeering and murder indictment. Those plans were based on information obtained by veteran FBI agent Theodore Otto that Meldish had run afoul of Madonna who then ordered the hit. Meldish, a suspect in many murders in the 1970s and '80s as the head of a violent crew of drug dealers from East Harlem and the Bronx, worked in recent years as a loan collector and enforcer for Madonna, sources say.

Otto's information convinced prosecutors in Bharara's organized crime unit to hit Londonio with federal weapons charges based on the same facts in a 2014 state gun case when cops nabbed him sitting in a car with two cohorts and two loaded handguns. The thinking was the feds could use more strict bail restrictions for federal weapons charges and detain him without bail.

Christine ScacciaAssistant U.S. Attorney Scott Hartman did convince Manhattan Federal Judge Victor Marrero to remand Londonio without bail. But as Gang Land reported in June, the federal murder probe went nowhere. Law enforcement sources, Sheehan and Londonio's attorney, Charles Carnesi, all said there was little chance of a federal murder case, and the DA's office said it was finally going to give the defense lawyers the "discovery material" they needed to prepare for trial.

That never happened, said Carnesi.

"What we got was a roadmap to the discovery," said Carnesi. "But we got no discovery. We got police reports saying there were surveillance videos, but we didn't get the videos; we got another police report saying there are statements, but we didn't get the statements."

Next week, Carnesi will ask acting Supreme Court Justice Steven Barrett to order the DA's office to "give us the meaningful discovery we are entitled to have," the lawyer told Gang Land.

Meldish Slay Suspect Faces The Music For Weapons Rap

Christopher LondonioTomorrow is an important day for Christopher Londonio, the Luchese soldier who's been sitting in a federal lockup on a federal weapons indictment while state and federal prosecutors in two boroughs were debating how to handle the prosecution of the Michael Meldish murder.

Londonio copped a plea to the gun charges earlier this year and he faces sentencing tomorrow by Manhattan Federal Judge Victor Marrero. He's already served 16 months on the gun rap and his attorney, Charles Carnesi, will ask Marrero to impose a sentence of 18 months or less.

If Londonio receives that sentence, he would be released from federal custody since he will have served more time behind bars than the Bureau of Prison requires under its normal good time off provisions.

If all goes well, Carnesi will then shift gears and argue next week before a state court judge in the Bronx that his client deserves bail on the Meldish murder charges, although it would certainly be opposed by assistant district attorney Christine Scaccia.

Victor MarreroBut first things first. On the federal case, at least, Carnesi has a pretty good argument: Londonio has no other felony convictions, and the maximum recommended prison term for his crime is 18 months, according to his sentencing guidelines, as well as the U.S. Probation Department. That's what the feds indicated in a letter it sent Londonio before he pleaded guilty.

But that was then. Now, federal prosecutor Scott Hartman is asking the judge to keep Londonio locked up until at least 2018. Londonio deserves "an above-Guidelines sentence of 36 months or more," the prosecutor wrote in his sentencing memo. The statutory maximum for the crime is 10 years.

When Londonio was arrested, Hartman wrote, cops found a loaded "9 mm pistol lying on the seat beneath Londonio's leg" and on the seat next to him they recovered a stolen, fully loaded .40 caliber Glock "pistol equipped with a laser aiming device." Police also seized "a small arsenal of ammunition and, perhaps equally troubling, a variety of robber's tools" from the car, the prosecutor stated.

Pasquale MaiorinoLondonio also has a "history of violent domestic disputes" with his wife, Hartman wrote, and that, he argued, made it "necessary to punish the defendant for possessing dangerous weapons" and for ignoring a court order of separation that was "designed specifically to ensure that he did not pose a threat to others," including his wife.

The prison term the prosecutor recommended for Londonio is essentially the same called for by the sentencing guidelines for his codefendant, Pasquale (Patty Boy) Maiorino, 56, a Bonanno soldier who was a passenger with Londonio in the same car that was stopped and searched by police in November of 2014.

Maiorino, whose sentencing guidelines, which are based on numerous factors, including prior felony convictions, are 33-to-41 months, is also slated to be sentenced tomorrow.