90 year old Colombo mobster to accept award from union he is accused of robbing
Charles “Charlie Moose”
Panarella is set to travel from his home in Pennsylvania’s Poconos to New York
so he can be feted by the International Union of Operating Engineers.
A 90-year-old Colombo
gangster who has avoided a labor racketeering trial for a decade by claiming
he’s too ill is apparently spry enough to accept an award from the union he’s
accused of pillaging.
Charles “Charlie Moose”
Panarella is set to travel from his home in Pennsylvania’s Poconos to New York
so he can be feted by the International Union of Operating Engineers, the Daily
News has learned.
Brooklyn Federal Judge
Sterling Johnson approved the trip without the government weighing in on the
audacious request.
“We would never have
approved it,” said a law enforcement source who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Panarella must obtain
permission to travel to New York City for medical and lawyer visits, but the
judge balked at letting him attend a niece’s wedding in 2008.
The wizened wiseguy
gets around on a motorized scooter and wears a portable oxygen unit.
“He rarely travels
except for trips to his many doctors and, on occasion, to visit family,” court
papers state.
He is technically
still charged with racketeering conspiracy and supervising the Colombo crime
family’s influence over union Locals 14 and 15 in an indictment filed on Feb.
26, 2003.
Panarella was charged
along with 18 others — all of whom pleaded guilty. Some have served their time
or died. But Panarella, a retired construction worker, has a long list of
physical ailments and mental deficiencies that apparently renders him incapable
of enduring the rigors of a trial, according to court papers.
Two years ago, Johnson
agreed to take the case off his calendar, granting what he termed the
government’s “vulture option” — essentially waiting for Panarella to croak.
But the legendary
mobster is still kicking and ready to accept the union award “in recognition of
his 50 years of service,” according to court papers filed by defense attorney
Sam Schmidt.
“Whatever he has been
alleged to have done, it doesn’t detract from the fact that he was a
hardworking member of the union for many years,” Schmidt told The News.
The lawyer said he did
not know the details of the award ceremony, which is to be held April 4 in Long
Island City, Queens.
Local 14 of the
operating engineers is under the court-appointed supervision of a corruption
monitor, former federal prosecutor George Stamboulidis, who did not return a
request for comment.
A spokesman for the
International Union of Operating Engineers could not be reached.
Panarella’s rap sheet
dates to 1940; he has been linked to several gangland murders but never
charged. In the 1980s, he moved to Las Vegas, but still allegedly kept a hand
in construction rackets.
In 2001, he apparently
participated in a sitdown with the Genovese crime family to settle a union turf
dispute.
“(Panarella) would
chop your f---ing head off. . . . (He’s) an old man, but you know what? They
still s--t in their pants about (Panarella),” former Colombo underboss John “Jackie”
DeRoss said in a 2001 taped conversation.
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