Are the Clintons the New Corleones?

Interesting call from a woman to the Rush Limbaugh radio show in which Hillary Clinton is compared to mafia wives and Bill Clinton is portrayed as The Godfather.

RUSH: Peggy in Fort Pierce, Florida, great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hello. Rush --

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: -- just what you said before, it's a theory I've had for a long time. I think Hillary is a Mafia wife. If you saw the Married to the Mob movie, it was those gals that pretended they didn't know how their husbands gave them the money, or got the money for their perks. Now, I feel Hillary is the same thing. I think Tim Russert is way off saying, you know, she wasn't aware, everybody feels so badly for her --

RUSH: Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa -- Russert said she wasn't aware of what?

CALLER: That she was not aware that he was that much of a cheese or that he was cheating on her, or as she said, he's never going to do it again. This gal doesn't care. This gal has a nuptial agreement, never mind a prenup. She is going to go for the perks just like, God forgive me, the Kennedy women did. It's you just turn a blind eye, you turn your head, your husband's cheating, but you're getting power, money, notoriety. It's like selling your soul.

RUSH: You know, I can't argue with that. That is a pretty good analogy.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I'll tell you why I like it, too. I like it because it's coming from you, a woman.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: See, if I had said that, a lot of women who might be predisposed to agree with me would still have gotten angry because I was sounding like I was speaking disrespectfully, but you can say that, and it has power because it connects. I'm glad that you called. I had never consciously looked at it that way. Because you're absolutely right, there's no way she doesn't know what he's been doing --

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: -- for all of these years.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: She's exacted a price for it.

CALLER: Yes, she has, and she's going to exact a bigger price if she gets in any position to. She's going to buy his silence. Omerta.

RUSH: Well, all right, now, let me ask you this. Continuing here with the Mafia analogy.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Don Clintonleone.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: It is now his wife who seeks to run the mob.
CALLER: Yes?

RUSH: What if she loses? What if she loses? Don Clintonleone is of no more value to her.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: He is only a liability. And, of course, Don Clintonleone will see her as a liability, because you can't get back where he wants, the White House, without her getting there. What, then, happens to this famous mob couple?

CALLER: I wonder if they would have the guts to shed themselves of each other, because I think they're just hanging on to each other for what they can get out of it.

RUSH: Well, this is --

CALLER: There's no love there. I don't know if there ever was. But even if there was, as I said, she sold out a long time. She sold out on women. That's why I can't understand why more women don't see that. Women are smart.

RUSH: A lot do. A lot do.

Thanks to Rush Limbaugh

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Mobster Turns Lemons into Lemonade

It's too bad for Joey Vallaro that so many people want him killed. Otherwise he could make a killing himself on the speakers' circuit with his story of how even in adversity there is opportunity.

In Vallaro's case it would be about how he turned a jail stretch for extortion into a career as a Staten Island trucking magnate.

Always a step ahead, so far at least, Vallaro is the Mafia "rat" at the centre of a 170-page indictment against 62 mobsters and crooks, including the bosses of New York's Gambino family, which resulted in 57 arrests last week. It was a crippling blow to one of the city's notorious Five Families.

Twelve years and a lifetime ago, Vallaro became pals with the Gambino captain Nicholas "Little Nicky" Corozzo while they were in the can. Not long before he was jailed Vallaro and a partner had started a trucking company.

Court documents, referring to Vallaro as "John Doe #4", show that on the outside another Gambino captain, Thomas "Tommy Sneakers" Cacciopoli, recovered a debt owed to Vallaro's company "and, in return, demanded monthly extortion payments from that point forward". After his release from prison in 1999 Vallaro made the payments directly to Cacciopoli, 58, and to stay in business he has since handed over more than $US160,000.

In return, the Gambinos sponsored his business: ushering him into exclusive rights at development sites and granting him permission to start a cement company. When Vallaro wanted to sell after a buyer approached him, he first had to obtain permission from the family.

"In keeping with instructions from Gambino family captains Nicholas Corozzo and Leonard DiMaria to consult them before making any decisions concerning his business, John Doe #4 informed DiMaria of the [buyer's] offer. DiMaria later informed John Doe #4 that the family had agreed to allow him to make the sale, provided he pay $100,000 to the Gambino family," court documents show.

Vallaro's partner did not fare so well: "In early January 2008, Gambino family soldier Joseph Scopo approached John Doe #4 on behalf of Gambino family captain Thomas Cacciopoli and instructed him that when the sale of his cement company took place, John Doe #4 should not provide his partner with the more than $300,000 in sale proceeds due to him, and that Cacciopoli would collect the money himself when he was released from prison."

Long before he OKed selling Vallaro's business, Lenny "Fatso" DiMaria, a family member since the 1970s, had unwittingly given investigators an insight into corporate techniques Gambino-style when he was captured on a surveillance audio tape.

"You have to go bother these people for your money," he was heard telling a subordinate. "Rough them up a little. Tell them 'You're a f---ing stiff' … Crack a face. F--- them up. Don't you do it, send a f---ing kid to rough them up, a f---ing joke."

The most senior of those charged is John "Jackie the Nose" D'Amico, who rose from the rank of soldier to acting boss of the Gambinos. Seventy-three years old and facing racketeering and extortion charges, he may well die in prison like an earlier Gambino boss, John Gotti.

Also indicted are D'Amico's underboss, Dominic "the Greaseball" Cefalu, 61, and Joseph "Miserable" Corozzo, 66, the family's counsellor or consigliere. This trio was the Gambino "administration".

"The Gambino family operated through groups of individuals headed by captains, who were also referred to as skippers, caporegimes and capodecinas. These groups, which were referred to as crews, regimes and decinas, consisted of 'made' members of the Gambino family, also referred to as 'soldiers', 'friends of ours', 'good fellows' and 'buttons' as well as associates of the Gambino family," the indictment reads.

"With the assistance of the underboss and consigliere, the boss was responsible for setting policy, resolving disputes between members and associates of the Gambino family and members and associates of other criminal organisations."

Corozzo's brother, Nicholas "Little Nicky" Corozzo, is charged with the 1996 murder of the Lucchese crime family associate Robert Arena who refused to return marijuana he stole from a drug dealer. Arena was already suspected of killing one of Corozzo's crew - Anthony "Tough Tony" Placido - when Corozzo ordered his killing. A friend of Arena's who happened to be with him when he was shot was also murdered. Of the shooter, Little Nicky is alleged to have said he "did good work".

One longtime soldier who was spared the indignity of a physically demeaning nickname - and possibly with good reason - was Charles "Charlie Canig" Carneglia.

Grey-bearded and with an improbable grey ponytail, Carneglia has allegedly been killing for the Gambinos since the 1970s, and not necessarily always while under instruction.

In 1975 Albert Gelb, 25, intervened when he saw a young woman being harassed in a diner by a man who produced a gun before Gelb disarmed him. The man was Carneglia. Gelb was shot dead seated at the wheel of his car shortly before Carneglia's trial.

Carneglia, 61, has been charged with five murders in all and also is suspected of a notorious hit on one John Favara, who disappeared in July 1980. Favara was the unfortunate motorist who struck and killed Gotti's 12-year-old son. The boy rode his bike into the path of Favara's car. Carneglia is suspected of shooting Favara and of disposing of his body in a cement-filled barrel. Favara's body has not been found.

The FBI this week was making a body count of another sort. In the Gambino takedown they counted three family captains, three acting captains and 16 soldiers. "Once ruled by the powerful Carlo Gambino and 'Dapper Don' John Gotti, the Gambino family has been reduced to a shadow of its former criminal self over the years … but it is far from dead, continuing its efforts to infiltrate such industries as trucking and construction," the FBI said. "Still, the investigations and ensuing indictment represent another crippling blow. A total of 25 alleged Gambino mobsters - including each active leader of the family not already in jail - were indicted."

Among those charged are members and associates of the Bonnano and Genovese crime families and figures from the construction industry and unions. The charges span three decades and involve murder, drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion and various scams.

The Labour Department inspector-general, Gordon Heddell, said the scams involved some of New York's biggest building companies. "Many of these construction companies allegedly paid a 'mob tax' in return for 'protection' and permission to operate," he said. "The Gambino organised crime family caused the theft of Teamsters union dues, and of health and pension funds, directly impacting the welfare and future of many workers."

In addition, Carneglia ran marijuana. Other family members dealt cocaine. Corozzo and DiMaria oversaw illegal bookmakers, and acting captain Frank Cali ran illegal poker machines "including approximately four or five machines in Caf Italia in Brooklyn. Cali split a percentage of the gambling profits with the owner of the restaurant, with 10 per cent off the top going to the administration of the Gambino family," court documents reveal.

"In the 1990s, Cali was involved in overseeing the Gambino family interest in the annual Italian Feast on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn. The Gambino family received a percentage of the fees charged for the booths and rides, which generated tens of thousands of dollars each year. Cali split the money with other Gambino family associates, with 10 per cent off the top going to the administration of the Gambino family."

Joey Vallaro was a good earner for the Gambinos. In January 2006 they allowed him to start a new operation, an excavation business. That alone brought in $30,000 in extortion payments.

The New York Post said the crunch came when he was busted with two kilograms of cocaine in 2004. He turned informant rather than face a possible life sentence.

Contrary to expectations, Vallaro apparently did not enter the witness protection program after authorities swooped on the family: some reports claim that Joey stayed around to make a brazen appearance at a sushi bar last Saturday. It was just two days after the arrests, and two doors from the restaurant run by his now-abandoned wife, Trisha.

He is not expected to reappear until his time comes to testify in the looming Gambino trials. That is especially so since Little Nicky Corozzo, the man who ushered him into the fold, was not home when the police came calling. And he is still out there, somewhere.

Thanks to Ian Munro

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Operation 123 Clean Sweep in Cleveland Targets Organized Crime

Mayor Frank G. Jackson, Police Chief Michael McGrath, Special Agent in Charge Christopher P. Sadowski of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Columbus Field Division and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason today announced that a joint Cleveland Police and ATF investigation into criminal gang activity on the city's southeast side has resulted in 150 criminal charges being levied against thirty-one defendants. The year-long investigation, conducted with technical assistance from County Prosecutor Bill Mason's office, focused on the area surrounding E.123 St. and Lenacrave Ave. in the Fourth Police District and was dubbed "Operation 123 Clean Sweep."

Eight simultaneous pre-dawn raids this morning, carried out by arrest teams comprised of officers and agents of Cleveland Police, ATF, FBI, DEA, US Marshals Service and RTA, resulted in the arrest of twenty-four of the defendants named in indictments unveiled today. Arrest warrants were issued for thirty-one individuals including six juveniles. One of those being sought was arrested yesterday and four others named in the indictments were previously incarcerated for other crimes. The arrest teams, assisted by SWAT Units from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office and Cleveland Police, were led by ATF and CPD supervisors. Locations on Cleveland's east and west sides as well as addresses in East Cleveland, Shaker Hts. and Warrensville Hts. were targeted in searching for members associated with the LA Gunnaz gang. The moniker "LA" is short for "Lenacrave-Angelus," signifying the area of the city in which the gang operated.

"Organized crime sucks the equity out of neighborhoods and diminishes the capacity for residents to have the quality of life which they are entitled to experience," said Mayor Jackson. "As I said earlier this year, whether you live in Cleveland or are coming into Cleveland to break our laws, law enforcement will deal with you."

"This latest round of indictments," said Chief McGrath, "is yet another example of the successful partnerships we have established with those in our law enforcement community. We will continue to work to stamp out the gang violence that has become so pervasive in the City of Cleveland."

"ATF is committed to relentlessly pursuing violent criminals that victimize our communities. Today we have taken the first steps towards justice for the persons victimized by these criminals," said Christopher P. Sadowski, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Columbus Field Division.

"We support the Mayor's efforts to take the fight to the drug dealers and gang members," said Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, "I'm confident that the residents of this neighborhood will feel safer with the arrests of these thugs who have been terrorizing them. These indictments are part of a large scale operation by law enforcement to take back our streets--block by block, gang by gang."

Those charged in the indictment are:

ADULTS:

1. ROBBIE CAYSON HUTCHINS DOB: 06/17/68 AGE: 39 (Mother)
2. RONNEL ACY DOB: 09/15/89 AGE: 18
3. KENNETH POTTS DOB: 01/24/88 AGE: 20 (Son of Hutchins)
4. LAMAR SEARS DOB: 10/11/89 AGE: 18
5. TERRANCE BROWN DOB: 02/16/88 AGE: 19
6. JAYLON PATTERSON DOB: 05/23/88 AGE: 19
7. SHUNDER HOWARD DOB: 05/18/1989 AGE: 18
8. SHERWIN WILLIAMS DOB: 11/12/75 AGE: 32
9. LARRY CRAWFORD DOB: 02/19/49 AGE: 58
10. STEVEN OLIVER DOB: 10/21/1989 AGE: 18
11. BRYANT CAYSON DOB: 08/10/84 AGE: 23 (Son of Hutchins)
12. MARK FULLEN DOB: 10/04/88 AGE: 19
13. ROBBIE CAYSON DOB: 08/02/88 AGE: 19
14. LYNDON DAVIS DOB: 12/07/87 AGE: 20
15. ERIK HEARD DOB: 08/04/88 AGE: 19
16. JOSHUA COLBERT DOB: 02/12/89 AGE: 19
17. CHRISTIAN CRAIG DOB: 12/15/88 AGE: 19
18. JEFFREY HOOD DOB: 05/11/1986 AGE: 21
19. DARNELL WILLIAMS DOB: 10/19/86 AGE: 21
20. TYRONE BALLOU DOB: 08/04/87 AGE: 20


JUVENILES:

1. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 07/20/91 AGE: 16
2. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 07/07/90 AGE: 17
3. Joshua Colbert DOB: 02/12/89 AGE: 19 (now an adult w/ adult charges
as well)
4. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 03/13/90 AGE: 17 (Son of Hutchins)
5. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 11/28/89 AGE: 18
6. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 05/12/89 AGE: 18
7. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 01/17/1990 AGE: 18
8. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 06/06/89 AGE: 18
9. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 08/20/92 AGE: 15 (Son of Hutchins)
10. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 12/26/92 AGE: 15 (Son of Hutchins)
11. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 04/30/91 AGE: 16
12. Unnamed Juvenile DOB: 06/24/89 AGE: 18

Six of the juveniles charged have turned eighteen since their crimes were committed. However, because their alleged crimes were committed while they were under the age of eighteen they will be charged in Juvenile Court.

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The Mob Ties That Bind in Ozone Park

Standing in front of the old site of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park, Queens, you can see a few immediate differences between its appearance now and its appearance when it was home base for the John J. Gotti and his associates in the Gambino crime family.

First, the space, at 98-04 101st Avenue, has been divided into two businesses, a medical supply store and a pet groomer, and it looks a lot more welcoming now than it used to. Second, there was some faded graffiti on the front of the building. That is the kind of thing, people in the neighborhood said this week, that would not have flown when Mr. Gotti, who died in prison in 2002, was still around.

I was in Ozone Park to visit a couple of Mafia landmarks for the Dispatches feature in this week’s City section, and to see what people thought about the arrests last week of dozens of people accused of involvement with organized crime. One thing that’s clear is that Mr. Gotti and his compatriots really did, and do, have a following in the neighborhood. They put on fireworks shows and held barbecues at the club, and anyone was welcome. And, people said, they kept the streets clean and safe, and scared away street criminals.

That last point is one you hear a lot regarding the civic benefits of organized crime, but I couldn’t find any substantiation for it in the city’s crime statistics. There are two police precincts covering Ozone Park, the 102nd and the 106th, and in both, every category of crime that the police track is down substantially since 1990, which was two years before Mr. Gotti went to prison.

The numbers can’t tell the whole story, of course — the city in general was a more dangerous place all those years ago, and maybe things would have been even worse in the neighborhood if Mr. Gotti hadn’t been around keeping an eye on things. But empirically, it seems the most you can say is that some people in the area felt safer. Albert Gelb, the court security officer killed near his home in the neighborhood in 1976, certainly wasn’t safer, and neither was John Favara, Mr. Gotti’s neighbor in nearby Howard Beach, who accidentally ran over Mr. Gotti’s son and disappeared in 1980, maybe to wind up dead and buried in an Ozone Park lot.

Things are not what they used to be, anyway. The neighborhood is less Italian than it was, and its newer residents lack a connection to the Gambinos’ prime years and may not have even heard of Mr. Gotti. And a quick search for addresses of the people named in the 170-page indictment reveals locations all over the tristate region, often in tonier areas than Ozone Park, a modest neighborhood of small, shingled houses.

Some people in the neighborhood who remember organized crime figures are not interested in discussing them. One business owner, who had stopped by the pet grooming store in the former Bergin social club storefront while I was there, maintained a stony silence on the topic of Mr. Gotti. But then, he had arrived while I was standing in Mr. Gotti’s old bathroom with a notepad, trying to find the words to describe his odd-looking toilet, so the man’s discretion did make some sense.

Others were almost as circumspect, but revealed a bit more. A waitress at the Esquire Diner, where Albert Gelb once clashed with Charles Carneglia, the man charged in his killing, said she was sad to see the era of Mr. Gotti and his former associates come to an end. The way they socialized, she said, was a lot like the mobsters’ nights out depicted in Martin Scorcese’s “Goodfellas” — being ushered to special tables in expensive nightclubs and spending large sums of money on food and drinks.

It’s tempting sometimes to conflate movie mobsters with their real-life counterparts, and generally that is a temptation worth avoiding. I couldn’t resist, though, taking a peek at the table-side jukebox mounted in my booth at the Esquire. Yes, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” is in there — No. 2602.

Thanks to Jake Mooney

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Family Secrets Mob Prosecutor Succumbs to Cancer

It may seem an odd compliment, but there is perhaps no better praise for the work Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell Mars did than how mobsters referred to him.

"That (expletive) Mitch Mars," is what crooked Chicago cop Anthony Doyle called him on tape recordings he didn't know were being made.

"That is a real testament to the guy," said Markus Funk, one of Mars' co-prosecutors in the Family Secrets trial, which put Doyle and other mobsters away in September.

Over and over, said Funk, on wiretaps and prison eavesdropping recordings, the bad guys had one concern: what did Mitch Mars know and how close was he getting?

More often than not, Mars knew a lot about the Chicago Outfit and was very close.

In September, he got closer than many mobsters ever dreamed he would: convicting mob leaders James Marcello, Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank Calabrese and others on racketeering charges stemming from murders that were, in some cases, decades old.

It was a fitting exclamation point on the career of Mars, the chief of the organized crime section of the U.S. attorney's office.

Mars died of lung cancer Tuesday night. He was 55.

He had battled crime since 1978, when he joined the U.S. Justice Department. He arrived in Chicago in 1980 and joined the U.S. attorney's office in 1990 when it merged with the Justice Department's organized crime strike force.

Family Secrets was but the last hurrah in a long line of prosecutions. He also helped put away Cicero mayor Betty Loren-Maltese, Chicago Heights mob boss Albert Tocco and several others along the way.

"But we would do a disservice to remember Mitch only by what he accomplished as a prosecutor in the courtroom," said Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, in a prepared statement.

"He is a complete gentleman," said Susan Shatz, one of the lawyers who represented Lombardo in the trial. "I hold him in the highest regard.

While Mars was all business in the courtroom, those who knew him outside of it said he was easygoing and a prankster.

After months of trial and working late nights and weekends, Shatz and Mars were forever calling one another, Shatz said.

On the last day of trial, Shatz arranged with Mars' wife, Jennifer, to have Jennifer wait until Mars wound down that evening and then ask him if he had remembered to call Shatz.

Mars apparently enjoyed the joke enough to return the favor, calling Shatz that night on her office phone, demanding trial papers in a mock-annoyed voice.

"I have not taken his message off my voicemail since then," said Shatz, who said she kept it when she learned Mars was sick.

Mars discovered his cancer shortly after the trial and took a leave of absence to spend time with his family.

He is survived by his wife, his mother, Constance, his sister, Deborah Berkos, his brother, Jeffrey, an uncle Raymond Oster and several other aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.

Visitation is Friday from 3-9 p.m. at Damar Kaminski Funeral Home, 7861 S. 88th Avenue in Justice. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at St. Cletus, 600 W. 55th St. in LaGrange.

Thanks to Rob Olmstead

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