Bronx Firefighter Arrested for Alleged Ties to Reputed Genovese Crime Family Sports-Betting Ring

A Bronx firefighter has been busted for his ties to an alleged $2 million-a-year, mob-run gambling and money-laundering ring.

Thomas McMahon, of Ladder Co. 38 in Belmont, was one of eight men charged by Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson with running a sports-betting ring tied to the Genovese crime family.

McMahon, 29, was arraigned in Bronx Criminal Court along with reputed mob associates Joseph Sarcinella, 77, Frank Mastracchio, 56, Dominick Totino, 44, Dominick Pietranico, 81, Bruno Travositino, 81, and John D’Ambrosio, 54.

Sarcinella — a longtime reputed Genovese mobster who pleaded guilty to running a gambling operation in 2002 — was in charge of the betting ring, which was run out of a social club and two gambling wire rooms, according to prosecutors.

McMahon took bets for the Bronx ring, created accounts and worked as a runner, picking up money and disbursing winnings, according to the DA’s office. “McMahon is close with Mastracchio. He calls him his ‘uncle,’ ” a source told The Post.

Prosecutors said the ring, which had been under NYPD surveillance, collected more than $2 million on NFL, NBA and NHL bets between December 2009 and June 23, 2011.

McMahon faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. The seven-year FDNY veteran was suspended without pay. An FDNY spokesman declined to comment on the arrest.McMahon could not be reached for comment.

Thanks to Jamie Schram and Douglas Montero

Tweet

Mob Daughter: The Mafia, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, and Me!

From Karen Gravano, a star of the hit VH1 reality show Mob Wives, comes a revealing memoir of a mafia childhood, where love and family come hand-in-hand with murder and betrayal.

Karen Gravano is the daughter of Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, once one of the mafia's most feared hit men. With nineteen confessed murders, the former Gambino Crime Family underboss—and John Gotti’s right-hand man—is the highest ranking gangster ever to turn State’s evidence and testify against members of his high-profile crime family.

But to Karen, Sammy Gravano was a sometimes elusive but always loving father figure. He was ever-present at the head of the dinner table. He made a living running a construction firm and several nightclubs. He stayed out late, and sometimes he didn’t come home at all. He hosted “secret” meetings at their house, and had countless whispered conversations with “business associates.” By the age of twelve, Karen knew he was a gangster. And as she grew up, while her peers worried about clothes and schoolwork, she was coming face-to-face with crime and murder. Gravano was nineteen years old when her father turned his back on the mob and cooperated with the Feds. The fabric of her family was ripped apart, and they were instantly rejected by the communities they grew up in.

This is the story of a daughter’s struggle to reconcile the image of her loving father with that of a murdering Mafioso, and how, in healing the rift between the two, she was able to forge a new life.

Tweet

Traveling Vice Lords Leader, Jason Auston, Convicted of Federal Narcotics Charges

The leader of a west side drug trafficking conspiracy operated by members and associates of the Traveling Vice Lords street gang was convicted by a jury last week of federal narcotics charges following a trial in U.S. District Court. Jason Austin, 29, of Chicago, was found guilty of conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin and five counts of distributing crack cocaine after several hours of deliberation late Wednesday and yesterday. The trial began Feb. 14.

Austin, who has been in federal custody since November 2010, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison on each count. U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow set sentencing for June 29.

Austin and 30 other members and associates of the Traveling Vice Lords were arrested in November 2010 as part of Operation Blue Knight, which focused on around-the-clock retail street sales of crack cocaine and heroin in the area of Kedzie Avenue and Ohio Street, known as “KO.” Significant amounts of crack cocaine and heroin were seized during the two-year investigation, which the Chicago Police Department’s Organized Crime Division began in 2008 and the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined several months later.

The verdict was announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Garry McCarthy, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department; and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The investigation was conducted under the umbrella of U.S. Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), and with assistance from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force (HIDTA).

The evidence at trial showed that Austin, also known as “J Rock,” conspired with others to distribute crack cocaine, known as “rocks,” and heroin, known as “blows,” to customers via hand-to-hand transactions in the “KO.” The heroin, named “Blue Magic,” alone accounted for as much as $8,000 a day in sales, between approximately 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., seven days a week. During the investigation, law enforcement officers repeatedly surveilled the conduct of co-conspirators at KO. Surveillance, often video recorded, observed hand-to-hand drug transactions, controlled purchases of narcotics by undercover Chicago police officers, and controlled purchases of narcotics by confidential sources.

The government is being represented by Assistant United States Attorneys Maribel Fernandez-Harvath and Matthew Madden.

Tweet

Legal Laboratory Uses Science To De-Stress America’s Courtrooms

Imagine your life or fortune is on the line in a courtroom in America and twelve jurors hold your fate in their hands? Easing that scary proposition out of the minds of people on trial is what led Jason Bloom to developing a path of taking the guesswork out of jury outcomes. Bloom says, “Juries are like icebergs - what you see above water is the demographics; age, ethnicity and gender. However, below the water are attitudes, life experiences and predispositions which are more predictive to the outcome of a case.”

His crystal ball has been put to the test in more than 350 cases as his company, Bloom Strategic Consulting, celebrates five years and an astonishing 90 percent accuracy rate. Bloom has become a modern-day Nostradamus taking the mystery out of the judicial process and easing clients fears so they don’t have to sit on pins and needles throughout the length of the case. His company profiles the jury through mock trials and focus groups to see what’s important and what’s not important to the men and women in the box. “What I’ve really learned and what’s still fascinating to me is that there is a gap probably the size of an ocean between what lawyers and witnesses want to tell juries and what these juries actually want to see, hear and care about towards making their ultimate decisions and rendering verdicts,” says Bloom.

Working on science and strategy not hunches also led Jason Bloom to build his own legal laboratory in Dallas, Texas, called TrialMode. It’s a state-of-the-art mock courtroom designed for realistic, trial-like examination of case strategy, fact patterns and witnesses the ultimate decision makers’ point of view.

Tweet

William Beavers Indicted on Federal Tax Charges for Allegedly Failing to Pay Taxes on Campaign Funds and County Expense Account Used for Personal Purposes

Cook County Commissioner William Beavers was indicted yesterday on federal tax charges for allegedly obstructing the Internal Revenue Service and failing to report, and pay taxes on, all of his income. Beavers allegedly concealed his under-reporting of income and underpayment of taxes on thousands of dollars that he converted to personal use from his campaign accounts—including more than $68,000 in personal gain on one occasion that was not reported—as well as from his county discretionary spending account. Between 2006 and 2008, Beavers allegedly paid himself more than $225,000 from three separate campaign accounts and used at least a portion of those funds for personal purposes, including gambling. In 2006, he used more than $68,000 from a campaign account to boost his city pension, and between 2006 and 2008, he used his $1,200 monthly county contingency account for personal purposes without reporting any of these funds as income on his federal tax returns, the indictment alleges.

Beavers, 77, of Chicago, was charged with one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the IRS and three counts of filing false federal income tax returns in a four-count indictment that was returned today by a federal grand jury, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Alvin Patton, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago; and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Beavers, who was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, representing the 4th District, in November 2006 and began serving as a commissioner a month later, will be ordered to appear for arraignment on a date to be determined in U.S. District Court. Previously, Beavers served as the 7th Ward alderman on Chicago’s City Council from 1983 until November 2006, when he was elected to the commissioner’s post.

“If politicians choose to use their campaign funds for personal use then they, like all the citizens they serve, share the obligation to honestly report their income and pay the correct amount of taxes,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “The indictment alleges that over a course of three years, Commissioner Beavers repeatedly used his campaign accounts for personal use and then thwarted the Internal Revenue Service by causing his campaign committees to create false records to cover it up.”

Mr. Patton of the IRS said, “When public officials raise money for political campaigns and use those funds for personal expenses, they must report it as income and pay taxes. A system of government, like ours, which depends on its citizens’ voluntarily compliance with tax laws, is undermined when elected officials shirk their tax responsibilities.”

According to the indictment, Beavers had sole authority over three campaign committees that supported his political activities—Citizens for Beavers, Friends of William Beavers, also known as Friends for William Beavers, and 7th Ward Democratic Organization. As part of the corrupt endeavor to obstruct the IRS, Beavers allegedly converted campaign funds for his own personal use, provided false information to his campaign treasurers regarding the use of these funds, and understated his income and the taxes he owed in his individual income tax returns for 2006, 2007 and 2008.

During those three years, Beavers caused his campaign committees to issue checks payable to himself and to third parties on his behalf, and he allegedly used at least part of the proceeds for personal expenses, including an unspecified amount for gambling. The checks included approximately 100 payable to Beavers personally, totaling about $96,000 in 2006, $69,300 in 2007, and $61,000 in 2008, for a total of approximately $226,300.

As part of the corrupt endeavor, the indictment alleges that Beavers concealed his personal use of campaign funds by maintaining and causing campaign workers to maintain records that falsely reflected the uses of campaign checks payable to Beavers, including records used to prepare semi-annual Illinois campaign finance reports known as D-2s. Beavers caused campaign workers to falsely record, on check stubs and other records, that certain campaign checks written to him and used for personal purposes were instead used for campaign expenses, the charges allege.

In some instances, Beavers allegedly attempted to conceal his use of campaign funds for personal use by telling campaign workers that checks payable to and cashed by him were for paying campaign-related expenses, even though those expenses were not incurred by the campaign committees until months after Beavers had converted the funds. In other instances, Beavers withheld from his campaign staff any explanation of certain checks payable to him, or he caused workers to falsely record that certain checks were “void” or unused even though he had cashed them.

The indictment alleges that on Nov. 14, 2006, Beavers caused a check for $68,763.07 to be paid from Citizens for Beavers to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, a pension plan for certain City of Chicago employees including Aldermen, to increase his monthly pension from $2,890 to $6,541. The check allegedly was for personal use and should have been, but was not, reported as income on his 2006 income tax return.

Beginning in December 2006 when he began serving as a county commissioner, through November 2008, Beavers received $1,200 a month from Cook County in the form of a Commissioner Contingency Account (CCA) check for discretionary use. Any personal use of these funds was reportable as income, according to the indictment. Beavers allegedly used the total of $28,800 for personal purposes without reporting any of the funds as income on tax returns.

The three counts of filing false tax returns allege that Beavers failed to include unspecified gross income from his campaign committees and county account when he reported the following amounts of total income and taxable income on his federal returns for 2006-2008:

• $208,561 total income and $98,453 taxable income for 2006;
• $487,568 total and $204,228 taxable for 2007; and
• $300,408 total and $171,507 taxable for 2008.

Each count of the indictment carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine and restitution is mandatory. In addition, defendants convicted of tax offenses must pay the costs of prosecution and remain liable for any and all back taxes, as well as a civil fraud penalty of 75 percent of the underpayment plus interest. If convicted, the court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Getter and Samuel B. Cole.

Tweet