Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Peter "Petey Cap" Caporino
"Petey Cap" could have cashed in his chips and gone home, but he just couldn't give up his illegal gambling racket in Hudson County . And now it's going to land the 70-year-old back in prison for up to seven years.
"He just doesn't know how to do anything else," attorney Sam DeLuca said of his client, Peter Caporino, who pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Peter Vazquez yesterday.
Caporino ran illegal gambling for more 40 years and was an FBI informant for two decades. He operated out of his social club, the Character Club, on Monroe Street in Hoboken . A portion of his take was passed up the chain of Genovese crime family bosses.
In 2002, Caporino pleaded guilty to money laundering involving illegal gambling proceeds and was sentenced to five years in prison, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said. That sentence was suspended when he agreed to wear a wire for the FBI and help prosecute 15 reputed Genovese crime family associates. During that federal prosecution last year he testified that he continued to run his illegal gambling business even though the feds told him to stop.
After those prosecutions Caporino could have walked away and never looked back. Instead, things quickly fell apart.
Last month, he was arrested at his Hasbrouck Heights home and charged with leading an organized crime network, promoting gambling and possession of gambling records, officials said.
On Aug. 16 last year, he was arrested in Hoboken by Jersey City police and charged with promoting gambling and possession of gambling records, officials said.
The plea deal struck yesterday includes reinstatement of the five-year suspended sentence. Yesterday, he pleaded guilty to leading an organized crime network and prosecutors are asking that he be sentenced to seven years for that crime. He also pleaded guilty to promoting gambling, and prosecutors are seeking a five-year term for that. The prison terms are to run concurrently.
The sweep that netted Caporino in June also resulted in the arrest of his wife, Ann Caporino, 68, on the charge of possession of gambling records; and Andy Rush, 70, of Liberty Avenue in North Bergen , on the charge of conspiracy to promote gambling, officials said. The charge against Ann Caporino was dropped as part of her husband's plea deal. The charge against Rush stands.
Caporino was in prison from June 21, 1996 to April 21, 1997, corrections officials said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 7.
Thanks to Michaelangelo Conte
Monday, July 30, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Bulldog Talks to Widow about Mob Hit on Her Husband
Friends of ours: Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
Danny Seifert was 29 years old when he was slain at his Bensenville plastics company 34 years ago. His widow, who testified at the Family Secrets mob trial, spoke only to CBS 2’s John “Bulldog” Drummond about his murder before he could testify against the mob.
Evidence indicates defendant Joey "The Clown" Lombardo was a hidden partner in the firm and frequently dropped in. Seifert, who confided that he would testify against Lombardo and others in a fraud trial, was murdered as his wife Emma and 4-year-old son looked on in horror.
Emma Seifert had been married to her husband for six years that September morning when her nightmare unfolded. Friday she shared her ordeal with CBS 2, although she remained reluctant to have her face shown on camera.
“Two men with masks and gloves and guns came through the factory door into the office, they asked I don’t remember where my husband was or where that S.O.B. is,” Emma Seifert said. "I felt that one of the two men was Mr. Lombardo,” she said.
When asked why, she responded, “By the way he was built. By the way he moved. He was very agile, he had a boxer's build and I was familiar enough with him."
Seifert said prior to the shooting Lombardo and another man cruised ominously past the Seifert residence. "That was Mr. Lombardo,” Seifert said. “I saw him in the driver's seat. And there was another person in the car I couldn't identify."
Wounded, Danny Seifert fled for his life, leaving his wife and son behind. "One of them came back and pushed me down. The other was struggling with my husband,” Seifert said. “He took Joseph and I to the bathroom, put a gun to my head and said 'be quiet.'"
She said she did not mention those details to the authorities back in 1974 out of fear for her children’s safety. “That if anything would happen to me I was afraid they didn't have anyone to raise them,” she said.
Lombardo's attorney Rick Halprin says his client has a solid alibi and was not at the Bensenville factory when the murder occurred.
The Family Secrets trial will resume Monday at the Dirksen Federal Building.
Thanks to John "Bulldog" Drummund
Danny Seifert was 29 years old when he was slain at his Bensenville plastics company 34 years ago. His widow, who testified at the Family Secrets mob trial, spoke only to CBS 2’s John “Bulldog” Drummond about his murder before he could testify against the mob.
Evidence indicates defendant Joey "The Clown" Lombardo was a hidden partner in the firm and frequently dropped in. Seifert, who confided that he would testify against Lombardo and others in a fraud trial, was murdered as his wife Emma and 4-year-old son looked on in horror.
Emma Seifert had been married to her husband for six years that September morning when her nightmare unfolded. Friday she shared her ordeal with CBS 2, although she remained reluctant to have her face shown on camera.
“Two men with masks and gloves and guns came through the factory door into the office, they asked I don’t remember where my husband was or where that S.O.B. is,” Emma Seifert said. "I felt that one of the two men was Mr. Lombardo,” she said.
When asked why, she responded, “By the way he was built. By the way he moved. He was very agile, he had a boxer's build and I was familiar enough with him."
Seifert said prior to the shooting Lombardo and another man cruised ominously past the Seifert residence. "That was Mr. Lombardo,” Seifert said. “I saw him in the driver's seat. And there was another person in the car I couldn't identify."
Wounded, Danny Seifert fled for his life, leaving his wife and son behind. "One of them came back and pushed me down. The other was struggling with my husband,” Seifert said. “He took Joseph and I to the bathroom, put a gun to my head and said 'be quiet.'"
She said she did not mention those details to the authorities back in 1974 out of fear for her children’s safety. “That if anything would happen to me I was afraid they didn't have anyone to raise them,” she said.
Lombardo's attorney Rick Halprin says his client has a solid alibi and was not at the Bensenville factory when the murder occurred.
The Family Secrets trial will resume Monday at the Dirksen Federal Building.
Thanks to John "Bulldog" Drummund
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Co-op Exec Said to Have Paid Mob to Avoid Union Trouble
Friends of ours: Tony Accardo, Frank Calabrese Sr., Nick Calabrese, Michael Spano, Rocky Infelice
Friends of mine: Michael Cagnoni
The head of a cooperative association specializing in shipping fruits and vegetables was also delivering a briefcase stuffed with cash to mob figures before his murder, a witness testified Thursday.
"Yes, I believe that was one of the gentlemen," security expert Fred Pavlich told the trial of five alleged mob members after studying an FBI surveillance photo of the late Chicago mob boss Tony Accardo.
Pavlich said he resigned as head of security for the shipping cooperative that Michael Cagnoni headed only weeks before a powerful bomb erupted under the driver's seat of Cagnoni's Mercedes on June 24, 1981. Pavlich said the night before he resigned, he got a threatening phone call that didn't mention Cagnoni by name but still persuaded him that it would be prudent to give up his post as the association's security director.
Federal prosecutors say convicted loan shark Frank Calabrese Sr. was responsible for the Cagnoni murder. Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, the government's star witness, described how a bomb was planted and detonated by an automatic radio-controlled device. An eyewitness, who was at one time a U.S. Marines explosives expert, testified Wednesday that the blast sent huge hunks of metal flying through the air, produced a giant cloud of smoke and tore Cagnoni's body in half.
Calabrese, 69, is among five men charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included extortion of "street tax" from businesses as well as illegal gambling, loan sharking and 18 murders.
Pavlich testified Cagnoni was a brilliant shipping executive who figured out a way of setting up a cooperative association consisting of Chicago and New York grocers and California produce growers. He said thousands of trucks were going back and forth between Chicago and the West Coast every week aboard railroad cars with the association's shipments.
On arriving in the Chicago area, some trucks went to local grocers while others went on to New York to supply produce to supermarkets there. But every week Cagnoni also carried a briefcase stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash to Flash Trucking, a suburban Cicero company that made most of his Chicago-area deliveries, Pavlich testified.
Flash was owned by brothers, Michael and Paul Spano. Michael Spano is serving a 12-year prison sentence for his 2002 conviction for helping former Cicero town president Betty Loren-Maltese swindle the suburb -- long plagued by mob influence -- out of millions of dollars in insurance money.
Prosecutors say that when longtime Cicero mob boss Rocky Infelice was sent to prison in the early 1990s he dubbed Michael Spano his successor.
Pavlich said sometimes money was delivered to a meeting in a Rosemont hotel that Cagnoni and a number of other men attended.
"I of course kept my distance and went downstairs as I was told to do," Pavlich said. But he identified an FBI surveillance photograph of Accardo, who for decades was one of the most powerful mob bosses in the country, as that of one of the men on hand for at least one meeting. "I believe Rocky was there every time I was there," the former security director said, speaking of Infelice.
Calabrese attorney Joseph Lopez asked Pavlich whether he made the payments to avoid union problems. Pavlich said that as he understood it, that was one of the reasons.
Friends of mine: Michael Cagnoni
The head of a cooperative association specializing in shipping fruits and vegetables was also delivering a briefcase stuffed with cash to mob figures before his murder, a witness testified Thursday.
"Yes, I believe that was one of the gentlemen," security expert Fred Pavlich told the trial of five alleged mob members after studying an FBI surveillance photo of the late Chicago mob boss Tony Accardo.
Pavlich said he resigned as head of security for the shipping cooperative that Michael Cagnoni headed only weeks before a powerful bomb erupted under the driver's seat of Cagnoni's Mercedes on June 24, 1981. Pavlich said the night before he resigned, he got a threatening phone call that didn't mention Cagnoni by name but still persuaded him that it would be prudent to give up his post as the association's security director.
Federal prosecutors say convicted loan shark Frank Calabrese Sr. was responsible for the Cagnoni murder. Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, the government's star witness, described how a bomb was planted and detonated by an automatic radio-controlled device. An eyewitness, who was at one time a U.S. Marines explosives expert, testified Wednesday that the blast sent huge hunks of metal flying through the air, produced a giant cloud of smoke and tore Cagnoni's body in half.
Calabrese, 69, is among five men charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included extortion of "street tax" from businesses as well as illegal gambling, loan sharking and 18 murders.
Pavlich testified Cagnoni was a brilliant shipping executive who figured out a way of setting up a cooperative association consisting of Chicago and New York grocers and California produce growers. He said thousands of trucks were going back and forth between Chicago and the West Coast every week aboard railroad cars with the association's shipments.
On arriving in the Chicago area, some trucks went to local grocers while others went on to New York to supply produce to supermarkets there. But every week Cagnoni also carried a briefcase stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash to Flash Trucking, a suburban Cicero company that made most of his Chicago-area deliveries, Pavlich testified.
Flash was owned by brothers, Michael and Paul Spano. Michael Spano is serving a 12-year prison sentence for his 2002 conviction for helping former Cicero town president Betty Loren-Maltese swindle the suburb -- long plagued by mob influence -- out of millions of dollars in insurance money.
Prosecutors say that when longtime Cicero mob boss Rocky Infelice was sent to prison in the early 1990s he dubbed Michael Spano his successor.
Pavlich said sometimes money was delivered to a meeting in a Rosemont hotel that Cagnoni and a number of other men attended.
"I of course kept my distance and went downstairs as I was told to do," Pavlich said. But he identified an FBI surveillance photograph of Accardo, who for decades was one of the most powerful mob bosses in the country, as that of one of the men on hand for at least one meeting. "I believe Rocky was there every time I was there," the former security director said, speaking of Infelice.
Calabrese attorney Joseph Lopez asked Pavlich whether he made the payments to avoid union problems. Pavlich said that as he understood it, that was one of the reasons.
Undertaker Testifies at Mob Trial
Friends of ours: William "Butchie" Petrocelli
As both a gun dealer and an undertaker, Ernie Severino was able to serve the Chicago mob in many ways. Now he's helping the feds.
The 60-year-old Severino testified in the Family Secrets trial of five alleged mobsters. They're accused of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included illegal gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 murders. One of the murder victims was Butchie Petrocelli, the leader of the so-called "Wild Bunch."
Severino testified yesterday that back in 1980, he supplied Petrocelli with 100 guns. When other mobsters pressed Severino to hand over some items he'd been keeping for Petrocelli, Severino balked, fearing Petrocelli would come back and get him. On the stand yesterday, Severino said they answered: "He's not coming back." Petrocelli turned up dead.
As both a gun dealer and an undertaker, Ernie Severino was able to serve the Chicago mob in many ways. Now he's helping the feds.
The 60-year-old Severino testified in the Family Secrets trial of five alleged mobsters. They're accused of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included illegal gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 murders. One of the murder victims was Butchie Petrocelli, the leader of the so-called "Wild Bunch."
Severino testified yesterday that back in 1980, he supplied Petrocelli with 100 guns. When other mobsters pressed Severino to hand over some items he'd been keeping for Petrocelli, Severino balked, fearing Petrocelli would come back and get him. On the stand yesterday, Severino said they answered: "He's not coming back." Petrocelli turned up dead.
Friday, July 27, 2007
America's Most Wanted on The Chicago Syndicate
Rebekah Johnson: In 2006, John Walsh named Rebekah Johnson one of the year’s most wanted fugitives. And last month, police finally picked her up. But despite cops finding an AK-47 and nearly 1000 rounds of ammo in her apartment, Johnson entered a not guilty plea to a New York judge a few weeks ago.
Jean-Marie Jean-Francois: To many of those who knew him, Jean-Marie Jean-Francois was a friendly, church going man. But cops say he had a dark side. According to them, Jean-Francois practiced voodoo and abused his long-time girlfriend, Fritz-Anna. Finally, a restraining order was filed against him, and that’s when police say he exploded—killing Fritz-Anna, and hitting the road.
Cornell & Story Killers: 17 years ago, Robin Cornell and Lisa Story were killed in Cape Coral , Fla. Now, police say all their leads have dried up and they need your help this week in re-opening this cold case.
Guillermo Ramirez: When Amber Fish wrote a letter to America ’s Most Wanted about the rape she suffered at the hands of Guillermo Ramirez, we were touched. In 1992, Ramirez was arrested, but cops say he got out on bond and made a break for it. Now, 15 years later, Amber is still looking for justice. Police say if Ramirez has left the U.S. east coast, then he’s probably in the Philippines . This week, you can help us finally put an end to his run.
Igor Koumlikov: Cops say rumors were swirling around Detroit that somebody killed Jan Jasinski and buried her in her own backyard. Now that police have found the body, they’ve narrowed their list of suspects down to one man—a man by the name of Igor Koumlikov. Koumlikov has been on the run for seven years, and by now could’ve made it out of the U.S. On AMW.COM, we not only have photos of Koumlikov but also of the hole where cops say Jan’s body was found.
Adamson Killer: The Colombia River Gorge that divides Oregon and Washington is a picturesque destination for many sightseers. But last September, the area became a grisly crime scene. Dismembered body, including the victim’s hand, began washing ashore. Police were able to identify the John Doe as Douglas Adamson. Now it’s our job to figure out who killed him, and why.
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