Reputed Colombo Mob Figures Indicted in Murder of Police Officer

Eleven years after an off-duty police officer was assassinated by gunmen lying in wait outside his home in Sheepshead Bay, federal prosecutors charged three accused mob figures on Thursday in the shooting, removing a high-profile murder from the ranks of unsolved cases while painting the motive as one of simple romantic jealousy.

The charges were announced with the unsealing of a murder and racketeering indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, seeming to begin the process of closing the book on the Aug. 25, 1997, murder of the officer, Ralph C. Dols, 28. The indictment also charges a fourth accused mob figure in the murders of two other mobsters.

Prosecutors said that a Colombo crime family consigliere who has long been suspected in the slaying, Joel Cacace, 67, ordered the murder. Mr. Cacace, also known as Joe Waverly, had once been married to the officer’s wife, Kim T. Kennaugh, an investigator said. He is in prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to racketeering charges. The other three defendants are also in custody on other charges from an earlier version of the indictment. All four men are expected to be arraigned on Friday in federal court in Brooklyn.

In addition to Mr. Cacace, the indictment charges Dino Calabro, 42, identified as a captain and also known as Big Dino, and Dino Saracino, 36, who prosecutors say is a soldier known as Little Dino.

“Big Dino Calabro and Little Dino Saracino ambushed Officer Dols and shot him repeatedly outside his Brooklyn home, leaving him to die in the street,” said David Cardona, the special agent in charge of the criminal division in the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, speaking at a news conference on Thursday. “The murder was ordered by Colombo consigliere Joe Waverly Cacace merely because Dols was married to Cacace’s ex-wife.”

One investigator said the motive for the officer’s slaying came down to Mr. Cacace’s image. “From an organized crime perspective, this was insulting to Joel that she had married a cop,” the investigator said, adding, “and because he had a high-ranking position in the Colombo family, it looked bad for him.”

An earlier husband of Ms. Kennaugh’s, a Colombo hit man, also was murdered, in 1987. A woman answering the door of Ms. Kennaugh’s home in Staten Island, heavily festooned with Christmas decorations, said, “No, no,” and shut the door on a reporter inquiring about the case on Thursday.

The indictment, which is largely based on evidence provided by a new cooperating witness from the Colombo family, law enforcement officials said, also charges Mr. Calabro and Mr. Saracino with the 1999 murder of William Cutolo Sr. Mr. Cutolo was a Colombo family acting underboss and union official whose body was finally found on Long Island this year after an informant tipped off the authorities.

The fourth defendant, Thomas Gioeli, 56, who was an acting boss in the family and is known as Tommy Shots, is also charged in the killing of Mr. Cutolo.

Mr. Cardona said the murders led to promotions in the crime family. “That’s why mobsters commit murder,” he said. “Our intelligence revealed that Calabro became a made member of the Colombo family after the murder of Ralph Dols, and he became a capo after the Cutolo murder. Saracino was inducted into the family because of his participation in both murders.”

Officer Dols had driven home after finishing his shift at a Coney Island housing project and was parking his car at 11:38 p.m. when three men drove up in a dark Chevrolet Caprice and opened fire. He was wounded three times in the abdomen and twice in the arm before he could step from behind the wheel or pull his gun. He died in surgery at Coney Island Hospital the next morning. He had been on the force for four and a half years.

He and Ms. Kennaugh, who was 38 at the time of the slaying, had been married for two years and had had a daughter three months earlier. Ms. Kennaugh’s brother, August, was convicted in the 1981 murder of a Queens restaurant owner and had also been identified as a Colombo soldier.

The shooting rattled the already embattled Police Department, which was facing accusations in the brutality case of Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a broomstick in the restroom of the 70th Precinct station house earlier that month, on Aug. 9, 1997. As Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani eulogized Officer Dols at the crowded funeral Mass, thousands of demonstrators gathered at Grand Army Plaza for a march to City Hall to protest the Louima case.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly called for capital punishment. “The murder of a police officer is an attack on society at large and merits the death penalty,” he said in a statement.

The indictment also charges Mr. Calabro with the 1994 murder of Carmine Gargano and charges Mr. Gioeli, Mr. Calabro and Mr. Saracino with the 1995 murder of Richard Greaves. The bodies have not been found.

Thanks to Michael Wilson and William K. Rashbaum

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On the Waterfront, Mafia-Style, Leads to Operation UNIRAC

Dockworkers in Wilmington, North Carolina were getting sucked into a trap. Needing money between paychecks, some went to James Lee, a former dockworker who had become a leader in their union—the International Longshoremen’s Association, or ILA.

Lee had opened a small store across from the union hall and begun offering loans to his fellow members. But there was a catch. Lee charged an exorbitant interest rate, upwards of 25 percent per week.

Because he controlled the distribution of paychecks, Lee could make sure the dockworkers paid up: he would cash their checks by forging their signatures, take his cut, and then give what was left to the dockworker.

For the workers, this nefarious setup just kept them coming back for more loans. And if they complained? No luck—the mob had Lee’s back.

This scenario, which played out in the 1970s, was not an isolated one. The Gambino and Genovese organized crime families had begun asserting control over waterfront commerce along the eastern seaboard in the late 1950s through a variety of racketeering schemes. Their influence in ILA was cemented by the 1970s, and the FBI was understandably concerned.

In 1975, as part of the FBI's growing strategy to attack organized crime, they opened a case called UNIRAC (short for Union Racketeering), targeting systemic Mafia crime in ILA.

It began when a Florida businessman named Joe Teitelbaum—tired of being bilked by the mob—became a cooperating witness of the Miami Metro-Dade police. His information was shared with the FBI, and they opened a joint investigation with the Miami police. Eventually, they began pursuing related crimes up and down the East Coast.

New York became central to the widening investigation. Anthony Scotto, a Gambino family capo who often extorted the hardworking dockhands, was a national ILA leader and one of the most politically powerful union leaders in the country. He seemed untouchable.

As a young agent, Louis Freeh—who later became FBI director—played a key role in the New York side of the case. One of his targets was a mobster named Michael Clemente, who was well connected to wider mob schemes. Freeh’s job was to go undercover to get close to Clemente, discover his contacts, and help protect an informant working with the FBI.

He got very close, it turns out. Freeh often hung around the gym where the mobster used a sauna to conduct his private meetings. Clemente soon warmed to this newcomer. Often wearing nothing but a towel, the undercover Freeh was able to help identify the mobster’s associates. His act was so convincing that when Clemente saw Freeh in court waiting to testify at his trial, the Mafioso tried to get his attorney to let the judge know that the “kid” had nothing to do with the crimes.

Former Director Louis Freeh was recently interviewed about his role in the UNIRAC investigation and its place in FBI history. Below is an excerpt from the interview.

"The ramifications of the case were very significant. It was the first major labor racketeering case that the FBI had made. In those days, particularly in New York, the organized crime problem was dealt with by the FBI ... really sort of on a one-on-one basis. The notion of UNIRAC was that we would look at the entire enterprise, in other words the Longshoremen's union, juxtaposed [with] the Cosa Nostra groups that were controlling them. So the result of that was Director Webster in Washington established for the first time in the organized crime unit a labor racketeering desk. And the Bureau went on to look at cases not just on the East Coast but the central states, the Teamsters' cases, and really started to look at organized crime as an enterprise target. That was I think really responsible for the ... substantial weakening of [the Mafia] over the next 20 years."

Along with Freeh, dozens of agents worked for several years to develop evidence of criminal activity within ILA. It paid off on December 18, 1978—30 years ago this week—when a Miami grand jury charged 22 labor union officials and shipping execs for taking kickbacks and other illegal activities. It was just one of many indictments along the East Coast. In the end, more than 110 were convicted, including mobsters Scotto, Lee, and Clemente.

More work was yet to be done, but the Mafia was now on notice that the Bureau’s new strategy was working.

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Top Ten Messages Left On Rod Blagojevich's Answering Machine

10 "For 10 grand can you make me Pope?"

9. "Hello, is this the Blog-o-bloga-a-da-go-bl-vipivh residence?"

8. "Hi, it's O.J. Wanna be cellmates?"

7. "Oh, I'm sorry, I think I have the wrong Blagojevich"

6. "Hi, it's Larry Craig -- did I hear something about a Senator's seat being available?"

5. "I'm calling about your Senate seat on Craigslist. Want to trade for a futon?"

4. "Hey, it's Cheney -- Damn even I think you're sleazy"

3. "You really Blagojevich'd your political career"

2. "I'm guessing you didn't spend the bribe money on that haircut"

1. "It's Sarah Palin. Thanks for replacing me as the country's most embarassing governor"

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Keith Corbett, Federal Prosecutor Who Helped Break the Detroit Mafia, to Retire

The federal prosecutor who helped break the Detroit Mafia is calling it quits.

Keith Corbett, 59, the cigar-chomping assistant U.S. Attorney who ran the office's Organized Crime Strike Force, said he plans to retire on Jan. 3 because of shifting priorities in the Justice Department and because, well, he's worn out.

"I don't want to be one of those old guys sitting around talking about the good old days and telling people how we used to do it," Corbett told the Free Press. He said he hasn't decided what he'll do next.

Coworkers -- as well as criminal lawyers who've matched wits with Corbett -- said they'll be sorry to see him go.

"He's as good on his feet as any lawyer who ever walked into a courtroom," said Detroit criminal lawyer Robert Morgan, a former federal prosecutor.

Morgan and others say Corbett can try cases with little preparation, yet recall key evidence with lethal precision.

Corbett is a cocky, street-smart Irish kid from Brooklyn, the son of a New York City cop.

After graduating in 1967 from a seminary with plans to become a priest, Corbett enrolled at Canisius College in Buffalo, where his plans changed. After getting a political science degree in 1971, he enrolled at Notre Dame University and got his law degree in 1974.

Corbett, who by then had married, landed a job at the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office.

In 1977, he joined a Pontiac law firm to boost his income, but didn't like civil law. The next year, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit and eventually was assigned to the strike force.

In 1980, he won racketeering convictions against Detroit Mafia captains Peter Vitale and Rafaelle Quassarano for extorting money from a western Michigan cheese company. The FBI has long suspected that the body of former Teamsters' boss Jimmy Hoffa was incinerated at their garbage disposal facility in Hamtramck.

In the mid-1980s, Corbett helped convict mayoral associate Darralyn Bowers and then-Detroit Water and Sewer Director Charles Beckham in the Vista Disposal bribery scandal.

Corbett went back to private practice in 1989, but quickly returned to his prosecutor job and was put in charge of the strike force a year later.

His biggest victory came in the late 1990s when he helped convict the top leaders of the Detroit Mafia of racketeering and other charges spanning three decades. The case demolished the Detroit mob. But he got in trouble in 2003 by helping a subordinate, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, prosecute the first terrorism trial to result from the federal 9/11 probe.

Though two North African immigrants were convicted of aiding terrorism, the case imploded when the U.S. Attorney's Office learned that the prosecutors had withheld key evidence from the defendants.

Convertino resigned. He was indicted on a charge of obstruction of justice, but was later acquitted. He sued his former bosses.

Corbett told investigators he joined the case at the last minute and didn't know evidence was being withheld. Though he wasn't charged, Corbett did suffer the indignity of having his strike force merged with another unit and was demoted.

Defense lawyers said they don't hold Corbett responsible for hiding evidence, but added that he should have done a better job of supervising Convertino.

Earlier this year, Corbett's bosses considered putting him on the trial team that pursued prominent Southfield lawyer Geoffrey Fieger on campaign-finance charges, knowing that Corbett wouldn't be intimidated by the outspoken Fieger or his legendary criminal lawyer, Gerry Spence. Corbett ultimately was not assigned to the case, which Fieger won.

"I don't know if it would have had any impact, but it would have been a lot of fun," Corbett said mischievously.

Thanks to David Ashenfelter

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Mafia II Trailer

Mafia II is the sequel to the award-winning game that provides a beautifully crafted look into the dark and unforgiving world of the Mob. Expanding upon the original hit that captivated more than two million gamers around the world, 2K Czech takes players deeper into the Mafia world, with a mature and exciting experience that will immerse players like never before. Intended for a Fall 2009 release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, check out the trailer that debuted during the Spike TV Video Game Awards, which shows off the action-intensive gameplay and cinematic-style presentation of Mafia II.

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