The Roach just won't go away.
Anthony (Tony Roach) Rampino, a notorious hit man for late Gambino crime boss John Gotti, is getting a second shot at beating his 25-to-life sentence for heroin trafficking.
The reputed killer will appear in Manhattan Supreme Court on Jan. 29 for resentencing after a state appeals court overruled a judge who had rejected his bid for a reduced sentence.
Having served 10 years, Rampino conceivably could walk out a free man if Justice Arlene Goldberg gives him time served. Law enforcement officials say that would be a travesty of justice.
The Roach was more exterminator than pest for the Gambino crime family back in the day. Rampino was a backup shooter in the 1985 assassination of then-Gambino boss Paul Castellano outside Sparks Steakhouse in midtown, cops say.
He's also been fingered as a member of the hit team that murdered Gotti's neighbor John Favara in 1980 after Favara killed Gotti's young son in a traffic accident.
"He's a hard-core associate of organized crime," said Mark Feldman, a former federal prosecutor who supervised the 1987 narcotics case against Rampino for the Brooklyn district attorney's office. "He's as Mafia as a guy gets without being a made member,'" said Feldman, a managing director for BDO Consulting.
Rampino lived above Gotti's Bergin Hunt & Fish Club in Ozone Park. He was never inducted into the Mafia because of his heavy drug use. He reportedly earned the nickname 'The Roach' because he smoked every bit of a marijuana joint.
Federal prosecutors did not charge him with the Castellano or Favara murders because he was serving a life sentence for selling a kilo of cocaine to an undercover cop.
Although Rampino never appealed his conviction, he filed a petition seeking a reduced sentence in 2004 after state lawmakers overturned severe drug terms known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said the revised penalties are not intended for thugs like Rampino. "Rampino's sentence reflected who he was and the violence he was involved in," Brennan said.
Even behind bars Rampino has been incorrigible, losing more than 500 days of "good time" for misbehavior.
Thanks to John Marzulli
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Oscar Goodman Supports the Federal Stimulus Package Funding Mob Museum
After taking a hail of bipartisan bullets in recent days over the suggestion that a federal stimulus package should help pay for a proposed $50 million museum here on the history of organized crime, the project’s godfathers are returning fire, complaining that Washington pols are scapegoating the museum and the city.
The planned Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, a k a “the Mob Museum” on its own Web site, is to include interactive exhibits where visitors can snap their mug shots, stand in police lineups and wiretap one another. Such a center, Mayor Oscar B. Goodman said in an interview Thursday, is “absolutely falling within the four corners of what President-elect Obama is trying to achieve.”
“This is a project where all the plans are in place and we can start it within 30 days,” said Mr. Goodman, a former criminal defense lawyer who represented several Mafia figures in the 1970s and 1980s.
Citing studies showing that 250,000 tourists a year would visit the attraction and noting that tourism is to Las Vegas what car sales are (or were) to Detroit, the mayor continued: “I don’t know why Mitch McConnell would take on this project. It’s a great project.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and the minority leader, attacked the museum this week as a kind of localized earmark project that does not belong in legislation Congress passes to jumpstart the flailing economy.
Jon Summers, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and the majority leader, said Mr. McConnell’s statements were “moot because Senator Reid has been clear that there will be no earmarks” in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as President-elect Barack Obama calls it. Instead, Mr. Summers said, the money is likely to go to federal agencies for disbursement based on criteria not yet decided.
Slated to open in 2010, the museum would occupy the entire 42,000 square feet of a three-story neoclassical building that was the first federal courthouse in Clark County and one of the sites of the 1950 hearings into organized crime led by Senator Estes Kefauver, Democrat of Tennessee.
The creative director of the planned museum, Dennis Barrie, who also curated the International Spy Museum in Washington and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, said the structure was the second-oldest in Las Vegas and needed a $26 million restoration.
So far, $15 million has been raised, including about $3.6 million in federal grants and a nearly equal amount in state and local money, since 2001. A full-throttle fund-raising effort is to begin later this year. The federal government deeded the building to the city for $1 in 2000 with the stipulation that it be put to a cultural use. Restoration has begun.
“I’m sure it’s good fodder for politicians,” Mr. Barrie said, “but the interesting thing about the mob museum is that it’s a real look at the history of organized crime in America that goes back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the mob came out of the various ghettos and how it influenced America. A lot of people, what they know about the topic is what they learned from Hollywood.”
That said, Tony Soprano and Michael Corleone would get their due in a room about the Mafia’s influence on popular culture, and visitors would be exposed to unvarnished tales of the exploits of law-enforcement and mob figures, said Ellen Knowlton, a retired special agent in charge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who is the museum’s chairwoman.
“We’re trying to make sure this project is as accurate as possible,” Ms. Knowlton said, “so there are people involved who have had organized crime in their life or family. I don’t want to go beyond that to say who is participating. But it’s interesting that a number of people want their family’s side of the story told accurately.”
Even within Las Vegas, though, the project is controversial. The mayor acknowledged that some Italian-Americans were so alarmed when he first hit upon the idea in 2002 that he backed off quickly, joking that he had actually proposed a “mop museum.”
The F.B.I. supports the museum and has agreed to lend records and other artifacts to be exhibited. But among those opposed is a former federal prosecutor, Donald Campbell, who had a hand in breaking the mob’s hold on Las Vegas in the 1980s. “I don’t think we should ever romanticize a criminal activity,” Mr. Campbell said.
A spokesman for Senator McConnell, Don Stewart, said the senator was not attacking the idea of the museum so much as Mayor Goodman’s inclusion of it on the list of projects he would jumpstart with stimulus money. “The parameters for this bill need to be, does it create jobs, is it a waste of the taxpayers’ dollars, is it something that will help us long-term, not just a temporary thing, ” Mr. Stewart said.
Supporters say the museum will do just what the bill intends.
“This project exactly meets the criteria," said Alan Feldman, a museum board member and senior vice president of the casino giant MGM Mirage, the state’s largest private employer. “It is a construction project. It’s a legacy project; it’s a project that stimulates the economy by putting a wonderful tourist attraction downtown.”
Either way, Mr. Goodman is clearly enjoying the national attention the museum financing plan has prompted. “This is $1 million worth of publicity for us,” he said. “I love it. Just spell my name right.”
Thanks to Steve Friess
The planned Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, a k a “the Mob Museum” on its own Web site, is to include interactive exhibits where visitors can snap their mug shots, stand in police lineups and wiretap one another. Such a center, Mayor Oscar B. Goodman said in an interview Thursday, is “absolutely falling within the four corners of what President-elect Obama is trying to achieve.”
“This is a project where all the plans are in place and we can start it within 30 days,” said Mr. Goodman, a former criminal defense lawyer who represented several Mafia figures in the 1970s and 1980s.Citing studies showing that 250,000 tourists a year would visit the attraction and noting that tourism is to Las Vegas what car sales are (or were) to Detroit, the mayor continued: “I don’t know why Mitch McConnell would take on this project. It’s a great project.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and the minority leader, attacked the museum this week as a kind of localized earmark project that does not belong in legislation Congress passes to jumpstart the flailing economy.
Jon Summers, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and the majority leader, said Mr. McConnell’s statements were “moot because Senator Reid has been clear that there will be no earmarks” in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as President-elect Barack Obama calls it. Instead, Mr. Summers said, the money is likely to go to federal agencies for disbursement based on criteria not yet decided.
Slated to open in 2010, the museum would occupy the entire 42,000 square feet of a three-story neoclassical building that was the first federal courthouse in Clark County and one of the sites of the 1950 hearings into organized crime led by Senator Estes Kefauver, Democrat of Tennessee.
The creative director of the planned museum, Dennis Barrie, who also curated the International Spy Museum in Washington and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, said the structure was the second-oldest in Las Vegas and needed a $26 million restoration.
So far, $15 million has been raised, including about $3.6 million in federal grants and a nearly equal amount in state and local money, since 2001. A full-throttle fund-raising effort is to begin later this year. The federal government deeded the building to the city for $1 in 2000 with the stipulation that it be put to a cultural use. Restoration has begun.
“I’m sure it’s good fodder for politicians,” Mr. Barrie said, “but the interesting thing about the mob museum is that it’s a real look at the history of organized crime in America that goes back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the mob came out of the various ghettos and how it influenced America. A lot of people, what they know about the topic is what they learned from Hollywood.”
That said, Tony Soprano and Michael Corleone would get their due in a room about the Mafia’s influence on popular culture, and visitors would be exposed to unvarnished tales of the exploits of law-enforcement and mob figures, said Ellen Knowlton, a retired special agent in charge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who is the museum’s chairwoman.
“We’re trying to make sure this project is as accurate as possible,” Ms. Knowlton said, “so there are people involved who have had organized crime in their life or family. I don’t want to go beyond that to say who is participating. But it’s interesting that a number of people want their family’s side of the story told accurately.”
Even within Las Vegas, though, the project is controversial. The mayor acknowledged that some Italian-Americans were so alarmed when he first hit upon the idea in 2002 that he backed off quickly, joking that he had actually proposed a “mop museum.”
The F.B.I. supports the museum and has agreed to lend records and other artifacts to be exhibited. But among those opposed is a former federal prosecutor, Donald Campbell, who had a hand in breaking the mob’s hold on Las Vegas in the 1980s. “I don’t think we should ever romanticize a criminal activity,” Mr. Campbell said.
A spokesman for Senator McConnell, Don Stewart, said the senator was not attacking the idea of the museum so much as Mayor Goodman’s inclusion of it on the list of projects he would jumpstart with stimulus money. “The parameters for this bill need to be, does it create jobs, is it a waste of the taxpayers’ dollars, is it something that will help us long-term, not just a temporary thing, ” Mr. Stewart said.
Supporters say the museum will do just what the bill intends.
“This project exactly meets the criteria," said Alan Feldman, a museum board member and senior vice president of the casino giant MGM Mirage, the state’s largest private employer. “It is a construction project. It’s a legacy project; it’s a project that stimulates the economy by putting a wonderful tourist attraction downtown.”
Either way, Mr. Goodman is clearly enjoying the national attention the museum financing plan has prompted. “This is $1 million worth of publicity for us,” he said. “I love it. Just spell my name right.”
Thanks to Steve Friess
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination
A new book has been released
, Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination, was written by Lamar Waldron. In the book it proposes that Mafia Mobster Boss, Carlos Marcello from New Orleans had JFK killed.
This is not a new theory, but the book cites a testimony from Marcello where he said “Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself.” It seems that Marcello does not care who knows that he orchestrated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The former mobster boss also claims that he knew Jack Ruby, and he had him kill Lee Harvey Oswald. The new book which has 848 pages also looks at the links between Marcello and the murders of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
, Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination, was written by Lamar Waldron. In the book it proposes that Mafia Mobster Boss, Carlos Marcello from New Orleans had JFK killed.This is not a new theory, but the book cites a testimony from Marcello where he said “Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself.” It seems that Marcello does not care who knows that he orchestrated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The former mobster boss also claims that he knew Jack Ruby, and he had him kill Lee Harvey Oswald. The new book which has 848 pages also looks at the links between Marcello and the murders of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
How to Build Your Own Organized Crime Family
Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Paramount Digital Entertainment announced that The Godfather® II videogame will be shipping on February 24th in North America and on February 27th in Europe. The Godfather II allows players to both act like a mobster and think like a Don, by immersing them in a 1960’s organized crime world. As a Don, players can build a crew and grow their family in an effort to become the most powerful mob syndicate in America. Players will be able to choose how and when to use their Made men, either by commanding them directly in battle as part of their crew, or by sending them to do a job in another part of the world – bombing rival family rackets, attacking their businesses, or defending your own.
Players who pre-order The Godfather II at participating retailers worldwide will receive an exclusive crew member, named Tommy Cipolla, to hire into their family. While the other soldiers at the start of the game come equipped with one specialty and level-one firearms, Tommy will be the only crew member to possess two specialties – arsonist and medic – as well as carry a level-two double-barreled shotgun. With Tommy in your family, players will have a strategic advantage in the game, using his advanced skills either directly in battle, or sending him to take over and defend rackets on his own.
The Godfather II takes the open-world genre in an entirely new direction. Part of the fascination with The Godfather fiction is the feeling of power that comes with being the Don of an organized crime family – and The Godfather II game puts the control in your hands. While at its heart The Godfather II remains an action game, it also features deep new strategic gameplay mechanics never before seen in an open-world game. The strategic elements to the game allow you to extend the fantasy of building and running your own organized crime family. This means that you have to build and invest in your family, manage your businesses, and reach out to corrupt officials – all of which is done through the revolutionary Don’s View. The Don’s View is a 3D representation of your criminal empire in all three cities; it allows you to coordinate your strategy, plan hits on rival Made men, attack enemy rackets, and much more. The Godfather II delivers the ultimate organized crime experience by allowing you to call the shots.
Developed at the EA Redwood Stores studio, The Godfather II will be coming to the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, and PC. The Godfather II has been rated M for Mature by the ESRB and 18+ for PEGI.
Players who pre-order The Godfather II at participating retailers worldwide will receive an exclusive crew member, named Tommy Cipolla, to hire into their family. While the other soldiers at the start of the game come equipped with one specialty and level-one firearms, Tommy will be the only crew member to possess two specialties – arsonist and medic – as well as carry a level-two double-barreled shotgun. With Tommy in your family, players will have a strategic advantage in the game, using his advanced skills either directly in battle, or sending him to take over and defend rackets on his own.
The Godfather II takes the open-world genre in an entirely new direction. Part of the fascination with The Godfather fiction is the feeling of power that comes with being the Don of an organized crime family – and The Godfather II game puts the control in your hands. While at its heart The Godfather II remains an action game, it also features deep new strategic gameplay mechanics never before seen in an open-world game. The strategic elements to the game allow you to extend the fantasy of building and running your own organized crime family. This means that you have to build and invest in your family, manage your businesses, and reach out to corrupt officials – all of which is done through the revolutionary Don’s View. The Don’s View is a 3D representation of your criminal empire in all three cities; it allows you to coordinate your strategy, plan hits on rival Made men, attack enemy rackets, and much more. The Godfather II delivers the ultimate organized crime experience by allowing you to call the shots.
Developed at the EA Redwood Stores studio, The Godfather II will be coming to the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, and PC. The Godfather II has been rated M for Mature by the ESRB and 18+ for PEGI.
Al Capone's Hideaway and Steakhouse
Al Capone's Hideaway and Steakhouse was once actually one of the 10,000 speakeasies in the Chicago area controlled by Capone. Built in 1917 as Reitmayer's Resort and Beer Garden, the establishment catered to tourists and well-to-do residents who built summer homes along the shore of the Fox River in the Valley View area north of St. Charles.
With the passage of Prohibition, the Reitmayers entered a wild and daring time, manufacturing their own liquor and catering to some shadowy figures. In case of a raid, secret copper lines carried the illicit booze into a hidden storage area in the hen house.
In 1972, Bill Brooks Jr., a computer salesman visiting the area, noticed the rundown old beer garden and restaurant and bought it. Preserving the pine plank floors and walls, Brooks decorated his restaurant with memorabilia from the Prohibition Era. If you like history, allow a little time on your visit for reading newspaper stories of mob hits, receipts and letters from Capone's business, and looking at photographs of the Chicago Outfit.
Bill Brooks III, 32, who was born and raised upstairs of the restaurant, said Al Capone's Hideaway and Steakhouse ages and trims all its steaks in-house. Two charcoal grill chefs, Brooks' uncle Mike Mosher and Ray Heaberlin, have worked the grill for 35 and 32 years respectively. Every week, the duo serve about 1,200 customers and use 1,400 pounds of charcoal. The menu is loaded with steaks, seafood, bullet holes, pictures of Capone and his cronies and, naturally, Eliot Ness.
Capone's business, of course, was illegal liquor. He once said, "When I sell liquor, they call it bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, they call it hospitality."
Legal liquor has become an important part of the Brooks' Alphonse Capone Enterprises. The Brooks family wholesales Roaring 20's Wine, Microbrews and Spirits. A vodka called Tommy Gun Vodka is sold in a glass bottle shaped like a 20's era Tommy Gun, complete with a barrel and two handles. Their vodkas are distilled in Poland. One, named Kul, Polish for cool, scored 91 of a possible 100 points in recent taste testings conducted by the Beverage Testing Institute. Kul, which retails for $10.95, was awarded a Gold Medal and Best Buy. "Kul got a higher rating than many $30 vodkas," said Brooks.
"The restaurant will always stay a part of our lives," said Brooks. "It's the base foundation for everything else, even though the liquor business can do in a month what the restaurant does in a year."
With the passage of Prohibition, the Reitmayers entered a wild and daring time, manufacturing their own liquor and catering to some shadowy figures. In case of a raid, secret copper lines carried the illicit booze into a hidden storage area in the hen house.
In 1972, Bill Brooks Jr., a computer salesman visiting the area, noticed the rundown old beer garden and restaurant and bought it. Preserving the pine plank floors and walls, Brooks decorated his restaurant with memorabilia from the Prohibition Era. If you like history, allow a little time on your visit for reading newspaper stories of mob hits, receipts and letters from Capone's business, and looking at photographs of the Chicago Outfit.
Bill Brooks III, 32, who was born and raised upstairs of the restaurant, said Al Capone's Hideaway and Steakhouse ages and trims all its steaks in-house. Two charcoal grill chefs, Brooks' uncle Mike Mosher and Ray Heaberlin, have worked the grill for 35 and 32 years respectively. Every week, the duo serve about 1,200 customers and use 1,400 pounds of charcoal. The menu is loaded with steaks, seafood, bullet holes, pictures of Capone and his cronies and, naturally, Eliot Ness.
Capone's business, of course, was illegal liquor. He once said, "When I sell liquor, they call it bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, they call it hospitality."
Legal liquor has become an important part of the Brooks' Alphonse Capone Enterprises. The Brooks family wholesales Roaring 20's Wine, Microbrews and Spirits. A vodka called Tommy Gun Vodka is sold in a glass bottle shaped like a 20's era Tommy Gun, complete with a barrel and two handles. Their vodkas are distilled in Poland. One, named Kul, Polish for cool, scored 91 of a possible 100 points in recent taste testings conducted by the Beverage Testing Institute. Kul, which retails for $10.95, was awarded a Gold Medal and Best Buy. "Kul got a higher rating than many $30 vodkas," said Brooks.
"The restaurant will always stay a part of our lives," said Brooks. "It's the base foundation for everything else, even though the liquor business can do in a month what the restaurant does in a year."
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