Friends of ours: Michael Giorango, Gambino Crime Family, John Gotti
The company that bought the Martha's Restaurant property includes a nephew of murdered SunCruz Casinos founder Gus Boulis and two felons -- one with reputed mob ties.
Spiros Naos, Boulis' nephew and part of SunCruz's current ownership, said Thursday he is unwinding his 14-month-old business relationship with the Chicago-area criminals because of "perception" issues. "Any reasonable business person would do the same thing," Naos said.
Naos' partners, Michael Giorango and Demitri Stavropoulos, were convicted in 2004 for separate crimes. Giorango, 53, a reputed organized-crime figure with the nickname "Jaws," is on probation after being found guilty by a Miami federal jury for promoting a prostitution ring. He also has a past conviction for illegal bookmaking. Stavropoulos, 38, is serving the final days of a nearly 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to operating an illegal gambling business and filing a false tax return. He also had to forfeit more than $1 million.
The trio bought the Martha's property in April 2005, even as prosecutors were building a case against other mob associates for the 2001 gangland-style killing of Boulis, founder of the floating-gambling empire.
Naos, 31, said he is "sensitive" about whom he does business with but insisted he didn't know the extent of Giorango and Stavropoulos' criminal background when they bought the Martha's property from Boulis' estate for $6.2 million. Naos said he originally was equal partners with Stavropoulos, whom he had met at a Greek wedding not long before the deal. Stavropoulos, in turn, split his stake with Giorango, Naos said.
Martha's wasn't their only business deal. Two months after the Martha's sale closed, the three partners and SunCruz Chairman Robert Weisberg paid $4.5 million for marina property near Myrtle Beach, S.C., where a SunCruz vessel docks.
Naos said Giorango and Stavropoulos were "transitioned out" of the South Carolina deal once Naos and Weisberg learned of the felons' backgrounds. Nothing in South Carolina property records could be found to reflect the change, which Naos described as a confidential financial matter.
Efforts to reach Giorango and Stavropoulos through their lawyers were unsuccessful. Giorango has another South Florida tie: State corporate records show he is manager of 2601 Associates LLC, owner of Miami Beach's Lorraine Hotel, one of the places where prosecutors alleged his prostitution ring operated.
While SunCruz's parent company signed a 10-year lease for the South Carolina marina property, Naos said SunCruz has no involvement with the Martha's property. In fact, the same month the property was sold, SunCruz pulled the plug on a gaming boat that docked behind the restaurant.
Both the Martha's and South Carolina marina property purchases were financed by the same Chicago financial institution, Broadway Bank.
The $4.8 million loan for Martha's, later increased by $1 million, and the $3.6 million loan on the marina property, among others, thrust Broadway Bank executive Alexi Giannoulias -- the Democratic nominee for Illinois state treasurer -- into the media spotlight earlier this year. Chicago-area newspapers wanted to know why the family-owned bank made loans to the felons.
While there was nothing improper about the loans, Broadway Bank would not make them again, said Giannoulias' campaign spokesman, Scott Burnham. Giannoulias ''is on the record saying that he didn't know the extent of the legal problems of these two individuals,'' Burnham said.
Giannoulias' campaign returned a $5,000 contribution from Naos, but not because of Naos' ties with Giorango and Stavropoulos, Burnham said. Rather, Burnham said it was SunCruz's connection with Jack Abramoff, who is embroiled in an influence-peddling investigation in Washington.
Abramoff, entrepreneur Adam Kidan and Ronald Reagan administration official Ben Waldman acquired SunCruz from Boulis for $147.5 million in September 2000.
Less than five months later, Boulis was murdered. Three men, a former advisor to Gambino family crime boss John Gotti and two mob wannabes, have been charged.
Thanks to Patrick Danner
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Private Eye Who Investigated 'Mafia Cops' Attacked - Possible Retaliation For Her Work Exposing Corruption
Friends of ours: Gregory Scarpa
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
A private investigator, who helped prosecutors look into several mob murders, was attacked in her car at the intersection of the Shore Parkway and the Bay Parkway in Brooklyn. She was found inside her car, strangled but still alive.
Angela Clemente was involved in many cases for Congress and local prosecutors. Investigators are concerned that that someone strangled Angela Clemente because of her work exposing corruption.
Some detectives wonder what really happened to Ms. Clemente, but police said she told them her attacker was a white man who drove off in a black car. In a statement, the Brooklyn D.A. said, "This is of great concern for us. We have a very active investigation going."
Clemente told detectives that she went to that part of Brooklyn to meet a possible source, after finding a note on her car windshield Thursday night in New Jersey to be there.
Last march Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes announced the arrest of former FBI supervisor Lindley de Vecchio, essentially charging him with protecting mob capo Gregory Scarpa Sr. Angela Clemente did a lot of the legwork that led to indictments in that case.
Her work also led to the investigation of the so-called mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. It is unknown at this time whether this work led to her attack.
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
A private investigator, who helped prosecutors look into several mob murders, was attacked in her car at the intersection of the Shore Parkway and the Bay Parkway in Brooklyn. She was found inside her car, strangled but still alive.
Angela Clemente was involved in many cases for Congress and local prosecutors. Investigators are concerned that that someone strangled Angela Clemente because of her work exposing corruption.
Some detectives wonder what really happened to Ms. Clemente, but police said she told them her attacker was a white man who drove off in a black car. In a statement, the Brooklyn D.A. said, "This is of great concern for us. We have a very active investigation going."
Clemente told detectives that she went to that part of Brooklyn to meet a possible source, after finding a note on her car windshield Thursday night in New Jersey to be there.
Last march Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes announced the arrest of former FBI supervisor Lindley de Vecchio, essentially charging him with protecting mob capo Gregory Scarpa Sr. Angela Clemente did a lot of the legwork that led to indictments in that case.
Her work also led to the investigation of the so-called mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. It is unknown at this time whether this work led to her attack.
Friday, June 16, 2006
A Family Torn Apart by Mafia Cops
Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louie Eppolito, Steven Caracappa
On Easter Sunday, Mike Guido inched along the Gowanus Expressway, his mother Pauline beside him in a fog of sadness.
Mike had just taken his mother to Green-Wood Cemetery to visit the graves of his father, Gabe, and brother, Nicky, who lay side by side on a verdant hillock just inside the fence at 20th St. and Prospect Park West, three heartbreaking blocks from where Nicky had been murdered by mob hit men on Christmas Day 20 years earlier, in a grotesque case of mistaken identity.
The name "Nicky Guido" had been passed to a homicidal maniac hoodlum named Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso by two NYPD detectives named Louie Eppolito and Steven Caracappa as one of those responsible for trying to kill Casso in a mob hit. Problem was that when the Mafia cops demanded $4,000 for Nicky Guido's home address, Casso balked and decided to get it free from "the gas company."
Which led to the murder of an innocent 26-year-old telephone company worker named Nicky Guido from 17th St. in Windsor Terrace, who had zero affiliation with the mob. "If Eppolito and Caracappa had never given the name Nicky Guido to middleman Burt Kaplan, who gave it to Casso, my brother would still be alive today," Mike Guido says.
On April 6, the Mafia cops were found guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court for the murder of Nicky Guido and seven others whose bodies popped up on the streets of Brooklyn like morning mushrooms in the worst case of police corruption in NYPD history.
These cops used their gold shields, handcuffs, and twirling lights and police sirens to run around the Borough of Churches killing and kidnapping people like fascist assassins in some despotic police state. Two of their victims, Israel Greenwald and Jimmy Hydell, became members of the "disappeared" like those who Jack Lemmon searched for in "Missing."
In 2005, Greenwald's body was exhumed from his grave in the cement floor of Garage #4 of a parking lot at 2232 Nostrand Ave., just blocks from where his shattered family had moved after losing their Lawrence, L.I., house when the family breadwinner vanished. "Thank you, thank you, thank you Lady Justice," Mike Guido said after jury found the Mafia cop guilty on all 70 counts. And so it was that on Easter Sunday following the verdict Mike Guido took his mother to visit his brother's grave. Buds popped, birds sang, sun shone as his mother placed flowers before a smooth marble stone that bore her son Nicky's name. She also put flowers on the grave of Gabe Guido, her husband, who'd died from a broken heart three years after his son was murdered.
"Then, after, when we sat on the Gowanus in traffic, on the way to Staten Island to eat Easter dinner in my sister-in-law's house, I looked to the right," says Mike Guido. "And there was Bush Terminal, where my father worked in an envelope factory to raise me and Nicky."
Then his mother nudged him and pointed to another austere building, and he realized it was the Brooklyn Federal lockup. "That where they are?" she asked.
"Yeah, Ma, that's where Eppolito and Caracappa will be eatin' Easter dinner."
"Good," she said. "Maybe we should send them a few jellybeans."
Mike Guido passes that jailhouse almost every day on the way to work. "I smile every time, knowing they're in that hellhole," he said. "And that they'll be going somewhere even worse to die in little cages like the animals they are."
Last week, Mike Guido decided to pass up the opportunity to read an impact statement at the sentencing of Eppolito and Caracappa, where they got life without possibility of parole.
"To start with, I had to go to work," he says, a concept lost on crooked cops and cheap hoods. "Secondly, they're beneath my contempt. I wouldn't waste my breath. There's a homeless guy who stands on 42nd St. and Seventh Ave. in Manhattan with a sign that says you can tell him off for one dollar. I'd rather give him a buck and tell him what I think of Eppolito and Caracappa than make a special trip to tell them."
Instead, on Father's Day Mike Guido will pick up his mother and make a special trip to Green-Wood Cemetery to pray over the graves of his brother and his father, who loved his sons so much that the loss of his youngest took away his very will to live.
"My brother was murdered 20 years ago," Mike Guido says. "But Eppolito's and Caracappa's life sentences are just about to start. I can feel my old man smiling. So on this Father's Day, both Nicky and my father can finally rest in peace. Together ..."
Thanks to Denis Hamill
Friends of mine: Louie Eppolito, Steven Caracappa
On Easter Sunday, Mike Guido inched along the Gowanus Expressway, his mother Pauline beside him in a fog of sadness.
Mike had just taken his mother to Green-Wood Cemetery to visit the graves of his father, Gabe, and brother, Nicky, who lay side by side on a verdant hillock just inside the fence at 20th St. and Prospect Park West, three heartbreaking blocks from where Nicky had been murdered by mob hit men on Christmas Day 20 years earlier, in a grotesque case of mistaken identity.
The name "Nicky Guido" had been passed to a homicidal maniac hoodlum named Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso by two NYPD detectives named Louie Eppolito and Steven Caracappa as one of those responsible for trying to kill Casso in a mob hit. Problem was that when the Mafia cops demanded $4,000 for Nicky Guido's home address, Casso balked and decided to get it free from "the gas company."
Which led to the murder of an innocent 26-year-old telephone company worker named Nicky Guido from 17th St. in Windsor Terrace, who had zero affiliation with the mob. "If Eppolito and Caracappa had never given the name Nicky Guido to middleman Burt Kaplan, who gave it to Casso, my brother would still be alive today," Mike Guido says.
On April 6, the Mafia cops were found guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court for the murder of Nicky Guido and seven others whose bodies popped up on the streets of Brooklyn like morning mushrooms in the worst case of police corruption in NYPD history.
These cops used their gold shields, handcuffs, and twirling lights and police sirens to run around the Borough of Churches killing and kidnapping people like fascist assassins in some despotic police state. Two of their victims, Israel Greenwald and Jimmy Hydell, became members of the "disappeared" like those who Jack Lemmon searched for in "Missing."
In 2005, Greenwald's body was exhumed from his grave in the cement floor of Garage #4 of a parking lot at 2232 Nostrand Ave., just blocks from where his shattered family had moved after losing their Lawrence, L.I., house when the family breadwinner vanished. "Thank you, thank you, thank you Lady Justice," Mike Guido said after jury found the Mafia cop guilty on all 70 counts. And so it was that on Easter Sunday following the verdict Mike Guido took his mother to visit his brother's grave. Buds popped, birds sang, sun shone as his mother placed flowers before a smooth marble stone that bore her son Nicky's name. She also put flowers on the grave of Gabe Guido, her husband, who'd died from a broken heart three years after his son was murdered.
"Then, after, when we sat on the Gowanus in traffic, on the way to Staten Island to eat Easter dinner in my sister-in-law's house, I looked to the right," says Mike Guido. "And there was Bush Terminal, where my father worked in an envelope factory to raise me and Nicky."
Then his mother nudged him and pointed to another austere building, and he realized it was the Brooklyn Federal lockup. "That where they are?" she asked.
"Yeah, Ma, that's where Eppolito and Caracappa will be eatin' Easter dinner."
"Good," she said. "Maybe we should send them a few jellybeans."
Mike Guido passes that jailhouse almost every day on the way to work. "I smile every time, knowing they're in that hellhole," he said. "And that they'll be going somewhere even worse to die in little cages like the animals they are."
Last week, Mike Guido decided to pass up the opportunity to read an impact statement at the sentencing of Eppolito and Caracappa, where they got life without possibility of parole.
"To start with, I had to go to work," he says, a concept lost on crooked cops and cheap hoods. "Secondly, they're beneath my contempt. I wouldn't waste my breath. There's a homeless guy who stands on 42nd St. and Seventh Ave. in Manhattan with a sign that says you can tell him off for one dollar. I'd rather give him a buck and tell him what I think of Eppolito and Caracappa than make a special trip to tell them."
Instead, on Father's Day Mike Guido will pick up his mother and make a special trip to Green-Wood Cemetery to pray over the graves of his brother and his father, who loved his sons so much that the loss of his youngest took away his very will to live.
"My brother was murdered 20 years ago," Mike Guido says. "But Eppolito's and Caracappa's life sentences are just about to start. I can feel my old man smiling. So on this Father's Day, both Nicky and my father can finally rest in peace. Together ..."
Thanks to Denis Hamill
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio Index
Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio was one of the Chicago Outfit's most feared hitmen. He is believed to have been boss from around 1969 to 1971. Originally from New York, he moved to Chicago when he was still a child. As a teenager, he moved to Milwaukee where he fought as a boxer under the name of "Milwaukee Phil". Unpopular as a leader, he was eventually convicted of bank fraud and extortion. While serving time for those convictions, he died at the federal prison in Marion in 1971 at the age of 59.Chicago Syndicate Articles that include mention of Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio
Wintry Grave May Be Part of Mob's Legacy
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