Donald Trump Connected to Chicago Mob?

Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago private club may be fined $15,000 by the Town of Palm Beach for three code violations — including a $5,000 hit for advertising and holding free-lunch seminars pushing a financial services company for older retirees.

Free lunches? Retiree seminars? Advertising? Holy Marjorie Merriweather Post!

Trump was in the Caribbean Thursday and couldn't be reached. But the Mar-a-Lago member whose company organized the lunches, Phillip Roy Financial Services boss Phillip Wasserman, said he was at the receiving end of a good "talking to" by The Donald.

Palm Beach forbids events at Mar-a-Lago to be advertised as "open to the public," which Wasserman did on the company's Web site. "Mr. Trump was stern with us," said Wasserman, who has offices in Boca and North Palm Beach.

The company boasts hundreds of free-lunch financial planning seminars in places like Carrabba's and Outback Steakhouse. The general concept of the popular seminars is being investigated by state regulators because it can hide high-pressure pitches.

"Mr. Trump didn't mention anything about a fine, but we'll be happy to reimburse him when he pays," Wasserman said.

Wasserman's background, meanwhile, may cause some members to question the "exclusive" label Trump tagged on the historic property's club, which charges a $175,000 membership fee. A lawyer by trade, the Sarasota-based Wasserman, 49, resigned from the Florida Bar nine years ago while facing disciplinary action. The Florida Supreme Court found him guilty of charging excessive fees, failure to act with diligence, improper trust-account maintenance and even paying a disciplinary fine with a bad check.

"I hope this isn't going to cause Mr. Trump to cancel my membership," Wasserman said, "although I've seen (boxing promoter) Don King at the club and he is a convicted killer."

Wasserman also acknowledged that several members of his family were tied to the Chicago mob.
The town, meanwhile, wants Trump to pay another $5,000 for having 820 fans at the Elton John concert in March, exceeding the occupancy permit by 120; and $5,000 for removal of 8-foot hedges.

"The fines will be addressed before the Town Council in June," said Town Building Department Director Veronica Close.

Thanks to Jose Lambiet.

Tweet

Reputed Capo recalls " A Few Nice Smashes" on Tape

Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Gregory DePalma
Friends of mine: Joseph "Joey Per Voi" Fornino

The final piece of evidence at reputed Gambino capo Gregory DePalma's racketeering trial depicted the Scarsdale man as a violent, robust Mafia enforcer rather than the ailing old man who drowsed at the defense table for the last two weeks.

Keenly aware of the image jurors might have of DePalma from watching him during the trial, federal prosecutors Christopher Conniff and Scott Marrah finished their case with a flourish; they used DePalma's own words to imprint their assertion that the 74-year-old was an active member of a ruthless organized crime family up until his arrest in March of last year.

Defense lawyers claim that DePalma is a sick old man living in the past, who routinely exaggerates his criminal deeds and power to puff up his own importance. An ashen-faced DePalma is brought into court every day in a wheelchair, oxygen tubes running from a green canister to his nose. He suffers from heart disease, kidney disease, and diabetes.But in a secretly taped conversation with a mob informant just two weeks before he was arrested, DePalma recounts a beating he administered to a man who owed money to a reputed associate of DePalma's.

"Oh, I gave him a few nice smashes," DePalma said of the attack on John Nigro at Pasta Per Voi, a Port Chester restaurant owned by Joseph "Joey Per Voi" Fornino, an accused associate of DePalma's who has also been charged in the case. DePalma claimed Nigro owed Fornino money.

In the conversation with the informant, Peter Forchetti, DePalma said he finally caught up with Nigro at the restaurant. In an obscenity-laced rant, DePalma says he called Nigro a rat, accusing Nigro of giving information to authorities about DePalma's son, Craig.

The elder DePalma pleaded guilty in 1999 to extorting Nigro. Craig DePalma also was convicted in the case. The younger DePalma is currently in a coma in a New Rochelle nursing home following a failed jail-house suicide attempt.

Gregory DePalma laments to Forchetti that there was one thing he didn't do when he beat up Nigro. "I made a mistake," he said. "I didn't rip his hairpiece off."

He accused Nigro of ripping off a Yonkers toupee maker by not paying him the $5,500 he owed for the rug.

Of course, DePalma had his own toupee trauma just before the trial began when deputy U.S Marshals found two $50 bills taped under DePalma's hairpiece in his Westchester Medical Center hospital room.

The finding assisted Judge Alvin Hellerstein in his decision not to postpone the trial, despite assertions by DePalma's lawyers, Martin Geduldig and John Meringolo, that he was too ill to stand trial.

Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Tuesday.

Thanks to Timothy O'Connor

Tweet

DA Scoffs at "Mafia" Fed's Claim

Friends of ours: Colombo Crime Family, Gregory Scarpa

Brooklyn prosecutors yesterday blasted accused FBI mob mole Lindley DeVecchio's claim that he's entitled to a federal trial.

The former G-man, who's accused of helping the Colombo family engineer four gangland rubouts during the 1980s and early 1990s, made his request under a little-used rule that applies only to officials who are engaged in federal duties when the alleged crime occur. But in legal papers, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes' prosecutors say DeVecchio isn't entitled to the change of venue because gangland killings aren't part of an FBI agent's duties.

"[The] defendant's job as [Gregory] Scarpa's FBI handler did not require him to provide Scarpa with the identities of potential government informants so that Scarpa could kill them," the papers read.

Tweet

Gotti Jr. Indicted Again on Variety of Federal Charges

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, John Gotti

In preparation for a third trial in less than two months, a federal grand jury has indicted John Gotti Jr. on a variety of Mafia-related crimes, including jury tampering as recently as this past summer.

Gotti was also accused of using proceeds of what government prosecutors call Gambino crime family illegal enterprises to establish and use companies to purchase real estate and collect rent from businesses. The indictment, returned on Monday, also said Gotti took part in a conspiracy to convince a witness to lie under oath at a trial of members of another organized crime family.

Gotti has twice been tried on racketeering charges. Both trials ended in hung juries. His third such trial is scheduled to open in federal court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan on July 5. Conviction on most serious charges could bring up to 30 years in prison.

The government contends that Gotti still runs the Gambino crime family. Gotti insists he turned away from such activities years ago. Gotti still faces charges that he ordered an attack on Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa in retaliation for Sliwa's reviling of Gotti's late father, John Gotti Sr.on Sliwa's radio show. The elder Gotti died in prison in 2002 while serving a life sentence on conviction of racketeering and murder. Sliwa suffered a baseball bat attack when he hailed what turned out to be a stolen taxi in Manhattan on June 19, 1992.

Thanks to Phillip Newman

Tweet

Alledged Mob Social Club: We Do a Lot of Good Things

Friends of ours: Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra, Bruno Caruso, Fred Roti, Frank "Toots" Caruso, Michael Talarico
Friends of mine: Robert Cooley

Leaders of the Chicago mob's 26th Street Crew established the Old Neighborhood Italian-American Club in 1981.

Members said it was just a private social club. But the FBI tapped the club's phones in the 1980s, suspecting it was a nerve center for gambling and "juice loans" -- illegal, high-interest loans enforced with the threat of violence. The wiretaps became part of a case against 10 men accused of running an illegal gambling operation in Chinatown.

Some reputed mob figures still hang out at the club. But one of them says reputed mob members no longer run the place as they once did. He put it this way: "We're not influenced by us any more."

The club -- which includes members of the powerful Roti family -- has broadened its membership since it was founded in 1981 by the late Angelo "The Hook'' LaPietra, who ran the 26th Street Crew. The members include doctors and lawyers, and people from different ethnic backgrounds.

The club has sponsored youth baseball teams, hosted anti-drug seminars for kids and held civic events featuring, among others, former Los Angeles Dodgers baseball manager Tommy Lasorda. It's opened its doors to church functions and school graduations. It's hosted "breakfast with Santa" and huge July 4th parties. "We do a lot of good things," one longtime member says. And when the White Sox are playing, its big-screen TV is blaring. Sox Park is just a few blocks south of the club, a red-brick building at 30th and Shields -- a big improvement over its former home in a Chinatown storefront. "It started out as a storefront, they'd play cards, sit around," said one veteran mob investigator. "Now, it's a Taj Mahal, with dues, workout rooms."

One past member is Robert Cooley, a former Chicago cop who became a mob lawyer, then government informant. "Everybody that I knew from the Chinatown area belonged, all of the bookmakers that I represented, that I knew," Cooley said in a July 1997 deposition to union investigators examining alleged mob ties of labor leader Bruno F. Caruso.

Caruso, a nephew of the late Ald. Fred B. Roti, was identified in a 1999 FBI report as a "made" member of the mob. He is also a member of the Old Neighborhood Italian-American Club. The group's "purpose . . . was to keep the neighborhood very active with children," Caruso said in a deposition six years ago.

Other current or recent members include two other men the FBI identified as "made" mob members: Caruso's brother Frank "Toots'' Caruso and Michael Talarico, a restaurant owner who married into the extended Roti family.

The club president is Dominic "CaptainD" DiFazio, a longtime friend of "Toots" Caruso. In a recent interview, DiFazio allowed that he was involved in illegal gambling but said that was years ago.

"Twenty five years ago, I was arrested for taking bets on horses -- 25 years ago," DiFazio said. "You learn your lesson quick in life, and that's it. Everyone's made a mistake in their life.

"Whatever I do now I do now, my heart's in this organization . . . It was always for the community, never anything sinister, believe me."

Thanks to Robert C. Herguth, Tim Novak and Steve Warmbir

Tweet