Gambinos held secret meeting on Staten Island days after murder of underboss Frank Cali

Gambinos held secret meeting on Staten Island days after murder of underboss Frank Cali

  December 05, 2019    Dapper_Don

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Four days after Gambino underboss Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali was killed outside his Hilltop Terrace home, members of the mob family organized a “clandestine meeting” on Staten Island, as they launched their own investigation into the murder, prosecutors say.

Andrew Campos, 50, who prosecutors identified as a captain in the Gambino family, and Vincent Fiore, 57, an alleged Gambino soldier, met with multiple other high-level crime family members to discuss the then-unclear circumstances surrounding Cali’s death, the U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of New York, wrote in a detention memo that was unsealed on Thursday afternoon.

The detention memo does not detail where exactly on Staten Island the group met.

In the following days, Campos and Fiore, of Scarsdale, N.Y., and Briarcliff, N.Y., respectively, actively helped the Gambino family investigate the murder, the memo alleges.

The day after the meeting, on March 18, Fiore talked to his ex-wife about the session, telling her that he and Campos met with “a half dozen” people, prosecutors wrote in the memo.

Fiore also told her that he had seen the surveillance video of Cali’s slaying and speculated on a possible motive “relating to a woman” who had been at the Hilltop Terrace home on the day of the slaying, the memo says.

Prosecutors do not specifically say who that woman could have been.

The accused Gambino soldier affectionately called Cali “Frankie” and described him as someone who “was loved," according to the memo.

‘A GOOD THING’

Fiore, however, had started discussing Cali’s murder the morning after he died, when he received a call from James Ciaccia, 51, of the Bronx, an accused Gambino family soldier, according to the memo.

During the phone call, Fiore said Cali’s death was “a good thing” because Campos, to whom both Fiore and Ciaccia reported, was likely to gain more power in the family, prosecutors allege in the memo.

On March 16, Anthony Comello, 25, of Eltingville, was arrested in connection with the slaying.

He has been in jail since then and made several inconsistent statements to investigators when he detailed what happened that night in March.

On Thursday morning, Justice William E. Garnett denied a motion to suppress the statements Comello made to investigators. 

MOB BUST

The details about the Gambino family meeting were revealed after the Eastern District of New York announced the arrests of 10 alleged members and associates of the Gambino family on Thursday.

The defendants are facing charges that span from racketeering conspiracy, bribery, loansharking, fraud, obstruction of justice and related offenses.

None of the people arrested are from Staten Island.

“The outstanding investigative work by this office’s prosecutors and our law enforcement partners uncovered a litany of crimes allegedly committed by members and associates of the Gambino organized crime family, who still don’t get it – handcuffs and a jail cell are waiting for criminals who threaten violence and commit fraud, money laundering and bribery in furtherance of their enterprise,” said United States Attorney Richard P. Donoghue.

The arrests, conducted in conjunction with the FBI, the NYPD, the IRS and the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, were based on alleged crimes that occurred since 2013.

https://www.silive.com/news/2019/12/feds-gambinos-held-clandestine-meeting-on-si-to-investigate-francesco-cali-killing.html