For $10,000 you can be a made member of the Philadelphia crime family
An outsider can buy his way into the Philadelphia mob for
$10,000.
Cash.
That, at least, is what New York mob informant Anthony
Aponick said he was asked to cough up to George Borgesi while they were
cellmates in a federal prison in West Virginia back in 2003.
"He said I would become a member of his crew,"
said Aponick as he testified today at the racketeering conspiracy retrial of
Borgesi and his uncle, mob boss Joe Ligambi. "He wanted $10,000."
The membership fee was just 10 percent of what Boston mobster
Bobby Luisi said he had to pay Joey Merlino back in the late 1990s to become a
made member of the organization. Whether that was a reflection of an economic
downturn in the underworld or whether Aponick was getting a special discount
could not be determined. Like Aponick, Luisi became a close associate of
Borgesi's. And like Aponick, he eventually became an FBI informant.
Aponick said his dealings with Borgesi also came with an
ominous warning.
"Listen, no matter what, don't fuck me," he said
Borgesi told him as Aponick was about to be released from prison in 2003.
"If you fuck me, I'll kill you and your whole family."
Aponick, who was already cooperating with the FBI by that
time, disregarded the warning.
Aponick celebrated his 43rd
birthday this morning by making his public debut as a government
witness. Describing himself as an associate of the Bonanno crime family in New
York, he said he befriended Borgesi after being transferred to the federal
prison in Beckley, W. Va., in 2002.
Borgesi was serving a 14-year sentence for a racketeering
conviction. Aponick had been sentenced to 93 months for a series of armed
robberies. They and several other mob members and associates hung out together
in the federal institution, Aponick said.
He described Borgesi as a "serious" mobster, but
also as a funny and witty individual whom he genuinely liked. He said that
laughed, joked and cooked meals together, and eventually became cellmates.
While reticent to discuss mob business at first, Aponick
said Borgesi eventually confided in him and also urged him to move to
Philadelphia after he was released from prison. While he was not a full-blooded
Italian-American (his mother was Italian, but his father was Ukrainian and
Lithuanian), Aponick said Borgesi assured him that he could become a made --
formally initiated member -- of the Philadelphia mob.
The price tag was $10,000.
Aponick is due back on the stand when the trial resumes
tomorrow. His testimony is considered crucial to the government's case against
Borgesi who prosecutors allege continued to run a mob operation from prison
while serving his 2001 sentence for a racketeering conviction.
Dressed in a gray, sharkskin suit, white shirt and tie, and
speaking with a thick Brooklyn accent, the five-foot-six Joe Pesce-look-alike
gangster testified for nearly four hours. Much of what he said supported and
corroborated the testimony of Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello,
another Borgesi associate who finished three days of testimony on Tuesday.
Among other things, Aponick said Borgesi boasted of his own
involvement in 11 mob murders, some of which he had been charged with and
acquitted, and others for which he had avoided prosecution.
"He told me he beat 11 murders," said Aponick.
"I'm from the streets. When you say you beat something, that means you did
it."
Like Monacello, Aponick described Borgesi, 50, as someone
who enjoyed his status as a mob leader and his reputation for violence.
"He told me he was the `coon-see' (consigliere),"
Aponick said. He also said that Borgesi told him his uncle (Ligambi) was the
boss but that the crime family "belonged" to Joey Merlino, Steven
Mazzone and Borgesi, all three of whom were convicted in the 2001 racketeering
case.
Borgesi is the only one of seven defendants in that case
still in jail.
"He said the family belonged to him, Merlino and
Mazzone," Aponick said. "His uncle was minding the store (and) would have
a step aside" when they came out of prison. If not, Borgesi said, Ligambi
or anyone else trying to run the organization "would have serious
problems."
Aponick said he began cooperating with the FBI in September
2002 while he was Borgesi's cellmate. He said he did so because he was
finishing his 93-month sentence and didn't want to go back into the mob life.
His cooperation earned him a six-month reduction in that jail term.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Aponick said he was a Bonanno
crime family associate for more than 20 years and was engaged in gambling, drug
dealing, hijacking, extortions and robberies for the organization. He said
Borgesi encouraged him to leave New York and move to Philadelphia where he
would become part of the crew being run by Monacello while Borgesi's was in
jail.
He said he described Monacello as "his man on the
street."
"I had never been to Philadelphia," Aponick said.
But he went along with the plan as part of his cooperating agreement with the
FBI.
He, like Monacello, also said he was surprised that Borgesi
used his wife Alyson to communicate
about mob business with him and other associates.
"It's not customary to get a woman involved to that
extent," he said after detailing messages relayed to him in letters and
phone calls by Borgesi's wife.
He said he and Borgesi discussed setting up an after hours
club and a men's clothing store through which they could run gambling and
loansharking operations in the Philadelphia area. But he said Borgesi told him
repeatedly to stay away from his uncle.
"He said his uncle was greedy," Aponick said.
The jury was also shown a video of Aponick meeting in
Brooklyn with Borgesi's brother Anthony and Mauro Goffredo, a Borgesi associate
in the trash business, while Aponick was in a halfway house in New York
completing his prison term.
The jury has already heard a phone conversation Borgesi had
with Monacello and Aponick after Aponick came to Philadelphia and met with
Monacello at Ralph's, a restaurant on Ninth Street. The tape is expected to be
played again so that Aponick can explain parts of what the government contends
was coded conversation. Borgesi made the call from prison where all phone calls
are taped and monitored.
Aponick's motivation for testifying and his credibility are
both expected to be challenged when cross-examination begins some time tomorrow.
One of the things the jury has yet to hear is that shortly after his release
from prison in 2003, and while he was cooperating with the FBI, Aponick robbed
several banks in New York. He was arrested for those robberies and his
cooperation agreement negated.
But he managed to convince federal authorities to give him a
second chance. His new deal resulted in a three-year sentence for the bank
robberies and his agreement to help make the case against Borgesi.
Aponick was not called as a witness in the first trial that
ended with a hung jury on the conspiracy count that Borgesi and Ligambi now
face.
The defense will argue that Aponick has used Borgesi as a
trading chit to get out from under his own criminal problems. That same
argument has been presented to the jury in an attempt to undermine Monacello's
testimony.
http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/12/witness-puts-price-tag-on-mob-membership.html#7zISyZoR0FAeBuR9.99
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