Prosecutors Cite Opportunity for ‘Powerful’ Blow to Mob
Washington Post
NEW YORK - The doddering Gambino crime family took another legal whack to the chops today when federal prosecutors indicted 17 made members on charges of extortion, threats, loan-sharking and other corruption along the New York and New Jersey waterfront.
Police conducted a pre-dawn sweep that netted 17 accused mobsters in 17 minutes, not least the family’s new acting boss, Peter Gotti, brother of jailed former boss John “The Teflon Don” Gotti Sr. Another Gotti brother, Richard V. Gotti, was charged, along with nephew Richard G. Gotti and Mafia soldiers Peter “Pete 17" Placenti and Anthony “Sonny” Ciccone.
The indictments charge that Julius “Doctor” Nasso, a former business partner of movie star Steven Seagal, tried to “extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from an individual in the film industry.” Two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the person to the Associated Press as Seagal.
“Today’s charges, together with our prosecution of the Genovese family leadership, present an historic opportunity to deliver perhaps the most powerful blow yet to organized crime’s control over the New York waterfront,” said U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad.
It has been a tough decade-plus for the Gambino family, more lately known as the Gotti family. The family hails from Howard Beach, next to Kennedy Airport, where family members traditionally learned to hijack goods and ply their trade. John Gotti Sr. is serving a century or so in a federal prison; John Gotti Jr. is putting in a half-decade or so in federal custody.
Now Peter Gotti, a former sanitation worker, faces charges that could bring him many decades as an involuntary guest of the federal government. He was held without bail today.
Some longtime mob chroniclers were surprised to hear the FBI describe Peter Gotti as the titular family head. As godfathers go, they said, this Gotti is an also-ran.
“He has to be one of the dopier wiseguys to come out of Queens in a long time,” said Bill Bastone, editor of Court TV’s “The Smoking Gun.” “It speaks to the depths that the leadership of that family has fallen. He’s the ne’er-do-well of that family, if you can imagine that.”
To which Jerry Capeci, author of “The Idiot’s Guide to the Mafia,” added: “These guys can’t hold a candle to the leaders 30 years ago.”
But according to the 68-count indictment, the family, even in a weakened state, retained a strong grip on a number of unions, not least the International Longshoreman’s Association, which represents 65,000 maritime workers in North America. The union’s vice president, Frank Scollo, known as “Red” and “The Little Guy,” was among those indicted on charges of wire fraud and extortion.
According to the indictment, mob members intimidated union officials into placing a mob associate on the union’s executive council, with an eye toward positioning him for the union presidency.
They also allegedly intimidated trustees of the union’s health insurance program to award a prescription drug contract to a company owned by “Doctor” Nasso.
When the trustees failed to act on this “suggestion,” mob associate Ciccone was captured on a government wiretap ordering union vice president Scollo to “look into what happened with . . . Nasso, why he lost the thing” and to “do whatever you gotta do.”
John Bowers, president of the International Longshoreman’s Association, declined to comment on the case today, saying through a spokesman that he needed to meet with his union’s executive officers Wednesday morning.
The mobsters also are accused of regularly extorting money from businesses along the waterfront, including Howland Hook Container Terminal and a Staten Island trucking company.
When a Brooklyn business owner complained that he did not like to keep illegal gambling machines in his storerooms, mob associate Primo Cassarino was unsympathetic.
“When I tell you to do something . . . you do what I tell you to do,” Cassarino was taped saying. “You hear me? If you don’t like it, let me know now. I’ll come there and throw you through the . . . window.”
The business owner agreed to continue safeguarding the machines.
Nasso is accused of threatening an “individual in the film industry” by demanding $150,000 for every film the person was involved in.
By early this evening, a federal judge had released 12 of the 17 accused members on bail that ranged from $250,000 to $300,000.
“This really puts this crime family back on its heels,” said Peter Pope, chief of the criminal division for the state attorney general’s office.
Some observers of the government’s war on the mob were more skeptical, however.
“The heart of mob families has always been gambling, loan sharking, numbers operations, and that’s never really been under assault,” Bastone said. “There are still hundreds of inducted members of the five families in New York, and revolving around them are associates, from businessmen, to runners, to loan sharks, to all sorts of suck-fish