Owner of Bada Bing strip club is a mob rat
Not only does Cardinalle own the strip club that was the backdrop for one of Tony Soprano’s favorite haunts in “The Sopranos,” but his business interests resembled those of Gandolfini’s mob boss character, who used waste hauling as a front.
Bada Bing, you rat.
The owner of Satin Dolls, the New Jersey strip club that served as the setting for the Bada Bing in “The Sopranos” TV series, is a real-life mob rat, court papers show.
Anthony "Tony Lodi" Cardinalle, 62, who decked out his jiggle joint with show memorabilia and posted the words “Thank You Jimmy, Farewell Boss” on a sign outside the Lodi, N.J., club following the death of actor James Gandolfini last year, is cooperating with the feds after copping a plea in December in a massive waste hauling criminal case.
Not only does Cardinalle own the strip club that was the backdrop for one of Tony Soprano’s favorite haunts in “The Sopranos,” but his business interests resembled those of Gandolfini’s mob boss character, who used waste hauling as a front.
Cardinalle, a Genovese crime family associate who lives in Saddle River, N.J., was revealed as the owner of Satin Dolls in court papers he filed asking a judge to order a psychological examination of Howard Ross, another defendant in the waste hauling case.
Anthony "Tony Lodi" Cardinalle, 62, the owner of Satin Dolls, a gentleman’s club in Lodi, N.J., that served as the setting for the Bada Bing jiggle joint in “The Sopranos,” is a real-life connected crook who turned rat for the government after taking a plea in a waste-hauling scheme.
The website Gang Land News first reported Cardinalle’s connection to Satin Dolls. Cardinalle’s lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment from the Daily News.
“I have been the manager of both Satin Dolls — which was the Bada Bing club in The Sopranos— and AJ’s — clubs owned by Anthony Cardinalle’s family,” William Pepe wrote in a Sept. 9 affidavit filed in Manhattan Federal Court, before Cardinalle decided to plead out.
“Anthony owns the real estate and the buildings the clubs are in.”
Pepe wrote the affidavit to back up Cardinalle, who was trying to beat his racketeering and extortion charges by proving Ross to be bonkers. Cardinalle claimed the principal evidence against him would be dirt Ross dished to a federal informant posing as the owner of a trash hauling company.
Ross worked for Cardinalle at Satin Dolls as a door man and hired hand.
Satin Dolls patrons cheer during a countdown to the final episode of "The Soprano's" in June 2007.
“Ross always told grandiose stories of his life .... Ross was always bragging about his mafia connections and how he knew everybody in the five families,” Pepe wrote, heaping scorn on his workmate.
“For example, Ross told me that he was very close with Joseph Colombo. Colombo was killed in 1971 when Ross would have been a pre-adolescent.”
Ross, 49, took a plea deal in the waste hauling case in November.
Cardinalle pleaded guilty to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise from March 2009 to April 2012; and to conspiring to commit extortion between July 2010 and May 2011.
Both charges carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison, but Cardinalle could be in line for a lesser hitch come May 23 if he rats out enough made men, Manhattan Federal Judge Kevin Castel acknowledged at a plea hearing on Dec. 19.
After James Gandolfini died of a heart attack in Italy last year, the road signs outside Satin Dolls included a tribute to the late actor of Tony Soprano fame.
To qualify for a leniency recommendation by the feds, Cardinalle must cooperate by answering questions posed by investigators and testifying at trial when necessary.
Cardinalle and Ross were among 32 people busted last January in connection with a mobbed-up scheme to control trash collection routes and businesses in New York and New Jersey. The feds used an informant to infiltrate the industry after nabbing the crook trying to set up a sex date with an agent he thought was a 15-year-old girl.
The informant’s company was first controlled by Genovese associate Carmine "Papa Smurf" Franco, and later by a crew that included Cardinalle and Ross. The mobsters extorted the informant by demanding weekly “protection” payments, prosecutors said.
“I agreed with others to participate in a conspiracy where others wanted an individual to give up a percentage ownership in his waste hauling company,” Cardinalle said in his plea. “This individual was advised by me and others that he had no choice but to agree or his company would be closed down by others almost immediately.”
Many of the trash hauling defendants have pleaded guilty, including Franco, so the feds may be looking to have Cardinalle sing for other mob investigations.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/owner-bada-bing-club-mob-rat-article-1.1604615#ixzz2sZcZIEyH
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