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BROOKLYN (CN) — Ten suspected members of the Gambino organized crime family and affiliates of the Sicilian mafia have been arrested around New York City on charges of racketeering conspiracy, violent extortion, witness retaliation, and union-related shakedowns carried out in an attempt to dominate the New York waste management and demolition industries, according to a 16-count indictment unsealed on Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court.
“Today’s arrests reflect the commitment of this Office and our law enforcement partners, both here and abroad, to keep our communities safe by the complete dismantling of organized crime,” Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that Italian law enforcement had additionally arrested six members of the mafia there in coordination with the actions of the FBI and federal prosecutors in New York.
Peace applauded the investigative coordination with the mob-busting New York Waterfront Commission and the Department of Justice’s law enforcement partners in Italy, including the Prosecutor of Palermo, the Polizia di Stato, the Servizio Centrale Operativo, and the Squadra Mobile of Palermo.
In connection with the arrests, federal authorities executed search warrants, one of which resulted in the seizure of multiple firearms from an associate of the Gambino crime Family.
The top defendant charged in the Eastern District of New York indictment was a reputed Gambino captain from Staten Island, Joseph Lanni, also known as “Joe Brooklyn” and “Mommino”.
The indictment also charges purported Gambino crime family “soldiers” and associates Diego Tantillo, Angelo Gradilon, James LaForte, Robert Brooke, Salvatore DiLorenzo, Kyle Johnson and Vincent Minsquero - also known as “Vinny Slick”; and Sicilian mafia affiliates Vito Rappa and Francesco Vicari, also known as “Uncle Ciccio”.
All defendants except for LaForte pleaded not guilty on Wednesday at arraignment in Brooklyn before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ramon E. Reyes Jr..
DiLorenzo was released on $500,000 bond, while Brooke, Rappa, Vicari, and Minsquero were granted release on $1 million bond each but their releases were stayed so the government can appeal. Lanni, Johnson, Tantillo, and Gradilone were detained.LaForte was not arraigned Wednesday because he is currently in jail in Pennsylvania and will be arraigned on a later date.
According to the indictment Tantillo, Rappa, Vicari, and Johnson demanded money from an unnamed person who ran a carting business in the New York City area by threatening him with a metal baseball bat, setting fire to the steps of his home, attempting to slash tires on one of his trucks, and assaulting an employee with a hammer.
Rappa, 46, is alleged to have said on a call recorded by the FBI’s wiretap that the Sicilian mob associate Vicari threatened to cut the unnamed carting business owner in half with a blade if he didn’t make kickback payments up to the Gambino family, commonly referred to as “tribute”.
“Get this axe and you make him – two,” he reportedly directed during the extortion assault.
The indictment further charges that Tantillo set up a “no-show” job for Gradilone - also known as “Fifi” - at a construction company with which Tantillo was associated.
Similarly, prosecutors claim DiLorenzo defrauded labor unions and their affiliated employee benefit plans by providing Rappa with a no-show job at the construction he owned. “Through the no-show jobs, Gradilone and Rappa received health care benefits, paid for by unions, to which they were not entitled, in addition to receiving paychecks for work they did not perform,” prosecutors wrote in a detention memo.
Prosecutors also assert Tantillo, DiLorenzo and others conspired to rig bids for lucrative demolition jobs, by agreeing to share information regarding their bids for the contract to handle demolition at 665 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, the site of Rolex’s new 25-story headquarters, and to adjust accordingly so that DiLorenzo’s company would win the contract.
LaForte and Minsquero are charged with one count of witness retaliation for reportedly hitting a man believed to have snitched on the crew with a glass bottle during a dinner at the Sei Less restaurant in Midtown Manhattan in Feb. 20221.
The investigation included judicially-authorized wiretaps on multiple telephones used by Tantillo and Rappa, texts and photographs from cellular telephones and iCloud accounts belonging to the defendants and their co-conspirators, and law enforcement surveillance.
The defendants charged Wednesday separately face maximum sentences between 20 and 180 years’ imprisonment.
In the 1980s, the powerful Gambino syndicate was headed by the notorious boss John Gotti.
Gotti, who was popularly known as both the “Dapper Don” because of his sharp sartorial style and silvery swept-back hair, and the “Teflon Don” after a series of acquittals on murder charges, was serving out life sentence for racketeering and murder when he died of cancer in 2002.
Aggressive federal prosecutions in the past three decades have decimated the ranks of New York’s once-powerful five Mafia families: Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese.
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