Mario Rainone, Reputed Former Mob Enforcer, Arrested

A man once known as an enforcer for the Chicago mob has been indicted on a charge of illegal possession of a gun.

Fifty-four-year-old Mario Rainone was arrested on a charge of residential burglary on Feb. 13 and is currently being held by Lake County authorities in lieu of $500,000 bond.

The one-count federal indictment charged Rainone with being a career criminal in possession of a firearm. Police found the gun when they searched his home following his arrest.

Rainone was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in 1992 after pleading guilty to a racketeering charge. Prosecutors said he told a restaurant owner he would end up in his own walk-in freezer if he didn't pay $2,000 a month.

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Wife of Reputed Mafia Associate, Arthur Gianelli, Pleads Guilty

The wife of reputed Mafia associate Arthur Gianelli pleaded guilty to federal racketeering, money laundering, and other charges just as she was about to stand trial with him and three other people.

Mary Ann Gianelli, a 52-year-old nurse from Lynnfield and the sister-in-law of convicted former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., admitted that she helped her husband run his illegal gambling business after he was indicted on federal racketeering charges in 2005 and placed under house arrest.

Assistant US Attorney Michael Tabak told the judge that Arthur Gianelli used to personally collect cash from various locations where his bookmaking and video poker businesses operate, but hired another man to do it after his arrest. When that man was called to a federal grand jury in 2006, he revealed that he collected more than $10,000 a month for Gianelli, according to Tabak.

The man told the grand jury he stuffed the cash in a shoebox, then drove to a North End garage at lunchtime on the 16th of each month and left the box inside an unattended silver Mercedes parked in a predetermined spot.

Tabak said investigators conducted surveillance at the garage on the 16th of one month and "in came a silver Mercedes and Mrs. Gianelli was driving it."

The prosecutor said that if Mary Ann Gianelli had gone to trial the government would have proved she collected illegal proceeds from her husband's business, filed IRS returns in 2002 and 2003 falsely claiming that she drew legitimate income from a trucking company, and was involved in other wrongdoing.

Mary Ann Gianelli pleaded guilty to 19 counts of racketeering, money laundering, filing false tax returns, and illegal structuring of cash transactions. Under a plea agreement, the government dropped an additional 141 money laundering counts against her.

US District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton allowed her to remain free on bail and set sentencing for June 5. Prosecutors said they would recommend an 18-month jail term. Her lawyer said he would recommend probation with a period of house arrest.

"Mary Ann Gianelli played a minuscule role in the grand scheme of this case," said Boston attorney E. Peter Parker. "Her crimes consist solely of handling money in the wrong way. Her criminal conduct is out of character with the way she has lived her life."

He said she and her husband were high school sweathearts who have been married for 28 years and have two children.

Mary Ann Gianelli's sister, Elizabeth, is married to Connolly. Connolly is the once-decorated former FBI agent who was convicted of federal racketeering charges for protecting long-time informants James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi from prosecution. He was also convicted of murder in Florida in November for plotting with the two gangsters to orchestrate the 1982 slaying of a Boston businessman.

The Connolly and Gianelli families have had homes next to each other in Lynnfield for many years.

Jury selection is continuing today in the trial of her husband; Dennis Albertelli, 56, and his wife, Gisele, 54, of Stow; and Frank Iacoboni, 65, of Leominster. A dozen codefendants previously pleaded guilty. Opening statements in the trial are expected Thursday.

Thanks to Shelley Murphy

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The Chinese Mafia/The Black Society/Hei Shehui within China Underground

How big is China? Bigger than you can wrap your mind around. Really. 1.3 billion people are hustling, trying to figure out what to do with themselves in a booming 21st century China. It’s a place that makes New York look boring, according to one author. A place where endless business opportunities come up against a stonewall, ironfisted government. A country where the only place to be different — a punk, a poet, a prostitute — is underground.

Taking months to research and travel around and hang out, Zachary Mexico executes in his first book what most merely wonder about. "China Underground" explores the untold stories of young, on-the-fringes Chinese men and women.

Drug dealers, wannabe rock stars, and even the Chinese mafia make an appearance in this fascinating collection of 16 true-life essays.

Here’s what Mexico had to say about his first effort:

JC: What was your initial fascination with China?
Mexico: I guess I started studying the language when I was 15. I went to boarding school in Massachusetts. I went there [China] the next year in 1995. And I guess I just found it to be a crazy, amazing place.

JC: Were these stories hard to find?
Mexico: Yes and no. I had twice as many and I took out the ones that I didn’t think were as good. Some people were hard to find. A couple of people I had known before. And I found a couple of people on the Internet. Some I met by chance.

JC: Which of the chapters was most difficult to research? Let me guess, was it the gay culture?
Mexico: That really was quite difficult. The city I had heard was a huge, gay hotbed. But it wasn’t or it was a complete lie. I went out to all these gay clubs and it was really difficult to get people to talk about it especially.

Another one that was difficult was the mafia guy and the drug dealer. Neither of those guys knew I was writing about them.

JC: Anything you wanted to include in the book, but didn’t make the cut?
Mexico: There were these guys who were making fake everything. Fake passports, fake bags, fake ID cards. In China, there’s fake everything. Even fake beer ... I went there [an area where they make the fake items] with a friend and they wouldn’t let me back in. And there were all these Chinese Rastafarians I was hanging out with, but at some point I couldn’t find them anymore.

JC: So, let’s talk about the mob. The Chinese mafia, the Black Society, or 'hei shehui.' What was most surprising about the Black Society? Anything you didn’t expect?
Mexico: I expected it to be this huge organized system where it’s secrets handed down from generation to generation, but it’s not. There’s no brotherhood. It’s not like the Sopranos. It’s not guys sitting down talking about territory. It’s more like gangs.

JC: You befriended a Chinese mafia member named Wang Dalong. You described his birthday party as an event filled with Mandarin pop love songs, cake fights, and lambshank barbecues. It sounds so magical. But then you talk about Dalong’s confession that he wants to go straight. And yet he cruises away from the scene just like a gangster. Part of him seems innocent and others seem well ... just like a gangster. He seems to be a bunch of contradictions. What was Dalong really like?
Mexico: I think anyone who is doing that kind of thing for a living is like that. He was a very nice guy. The kind of guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless you [mess] with him. Then he’d probably kill you.

JC: Do you keep in touch with him? Do you think he has/will choose the straight life?
Mexico: Yeah, I’ll see him in a couple of weeks. I don’t know what he’s doing. I know he opened a smoothie shop and it closed.

JC: In your chapter called 'The Chickens,' about Chinese prostitutes, you describe young women of various ages (some as young as 15) who sleep with countless men. Prostitution is illegal in China but also very common. There’s also a seven-tier system of prostitution that the Chinese government has established. Tell me more about that world.
Mexico: There’s prostitutes all over the place. It is certainly not surprising. When I was 16, I stayed at the Holiday Inn and there were prostitutes there. In China, it is socially more acceptable for a guy to go to a prostitute than it is here.

JC: You also delved deeper into Chinese gay society. Nine Dragons, the gentleman in your essay whom you profiled pretty carefully, sounds like he leads a horribly oppressed and hidden life. Is this typical of gay men in China? What is it like to live that life?
Mexico: I think it is certainly weird, especially in the less urban areas. It is not condoned at all.
But in the cities you can get by. I have a friend who’s a dude but just dresses as a woman all the time, and he seems to do okay.

JC: You explore Wuhan, the city that is the capital to underground Chinese punk rock. Tell me how the punk band scene in China compares to that of the U.S.
Mexico: In China, it reminds me of how everyone sounded here in the early 1990s. Everyone sounds like old Green Day.

Thanks to Lori Kozlowski

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Pauline Pipitone Breaks Silence On The Senseless Murder Of Her Son During A Botched Mob Hit In 1986

It happened on Christmas Day, 1986. A mafia hit man shot and killed Nick Guido on a Brooklyn street. Except it was the wrong man. The address was supplied by two detectives on the mob payroll -- Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa.

On Friday they will be sentenced in federal court. But before then, the mother of Guido has broken her silence in an exclusive interview with CBS 2 HD.

"The door was open; the car door. He was just laying there. The blood just coming out the car," Pauline Pipitone said. "I touched his hand. I said, 'No, I want to touch him.' His fingers were cold.

Guido was showing his uncle his new car. The 26-year-old was a telephone installer, waiting to hear from the FDNY if he'd been accepted. When the killer walked up, Guido shoved his uncle down, and covered him with his own body.

"Nicholas got the whole, um, 10 bullets," Pipitone said.

Guido was killed on the orders of Anthony "Gas Pipe" Casso, then the underboss of the Lucchese crime family.

When asked if there is ever a day that goes by that she doesn't think about her son's death, Pipitone said, "No way. No way." She added that even though 22-plus years have gone by since the killing, "I cry every day and every night."

"I'm his mother. He was my whole life."

The killer was looking for another Nick Guido, but the mafia got the innocent man's address, the feds said, from two crooked New York City detectives at the time – Eppolito and Caracappa. Pipitone said she wants them to live long lives … behind bars.

"I want them to live a long time and know what I'm going through. That won't give me any peace, but still … I'll still be crying," Pipitone said.

A week after Guido was gunned down the letter came in the mail saying he had been accepted for training with the fire department.

When Eppolito and Caracappa are sentenced Friday, it will be for nine murders they either carried out or arranged for the mob.

Nick Guido was the only innocent man.

Thanks to Pablo Guzman

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Tampa Gambino Case to be Tried in New York

Five men who were arrested last year at the same time as John "Junior" Gotti will join him in New York after a judge today ordered their trial to take place there.

The men, including Tampa resident James Cadicamo, had asked that their racketeering case be moved to New York because the majority of the crimes they are accused of happened in or near that city.

The other defendants in the case, all from the New York area, are John A. Burke, David D'Arpino, Michael D. Finnerty and Guy T. Peden.

The prosecution argued that the case should be tried in Tampa because important aspects of the conspiracy were centered in Florida.

The prosecution contends the defendants were a faction of the Gambino organized crime family that tried to gain a foothold in Florida. The indictment, however, also detailed murders, robberies and drug crimes in New York and New Jersey.

U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday, who previously ordered Gotti's trial be transferred to New York, again sided with the defense and ordered the related case also be transferred.

In a 19-page order, Merryday wrote that New York and the surrounding areas are "the undoubted 'nerve center' of the enterprise and the locus of the enterprise's malefactions."

Thanks to Elaine Silvestrini

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