Five Families of New York City

Updated news on the Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese and Colombo Organized Crime Families of New York City.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Elderly Colombo Captain sentenced to four years in prison for shaking down NYC union

  February 29, 2024    Dapper_Don


A Mafia member was sentenced Wednesday to more than four years in federal prison for his role in a long-running scheme in which he and others extorted funds from a New York City labor union, federal prosecutors said.

Vincent Ricciardo, a captain in Colombo crime family, was also ordered to pay $350,000 in forfeiture and $280,890 in restitution by a Brooklyn court judge.

Ricciardo, who is also known as "Vinny Unions," pleaded guilty to racketeering last July for his participation in the labor union extortion as well as money laundering, loansharking, fraud and other mob schemes.

Lawyers for Ricciardo didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.

Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York, said in a statement that the sentence holds Ricciardo "accountable" for his participation in a wide range of Mafia crimes.

"This prosecution represents our continued commitment to combatting organized crime and prosecuting the individuals who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of hardworking union members and their employers," he said.

The extortion scheme involved death threats, phony payments, and other hallmarks of Mafia-type shakedowns seen in movies.

Prosecutors say it started in 2001 when Ricciardo started squeezing a senior official with a Queens-based construction union to fork over a portion of his salary.

Russo and other Colombo leaders then concocted a plan to force the union to make decisions beneficial to the crime family, including driving contracts to vendors associated with the family, prosecutors said.

In one recorded conversation, Ricciardo even threatened to kill the union official in front of his family if he didn't comply.

"You laugh all you want pal, I’m not afraid to go to jail," he said, according to prosecutors.

Ricciardo is the tenth defendant sentenced in connection with the union scheme, according to Peace's office. Four others still await sentencing.

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/vincent-ricciardo-colombo-crime-family-sentenced-prison

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Sunday, February 18, 2024

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Gotti family members charged with assault after high school basketball game

  February 10, 2024    Dapper_Don

 

This is the kind of thing that could leave someone wearing a pair of cement Air Jordans.

The daughter-in-law and granddaughter of one of America’s most notorious mob bosses got involved in an ugly scene at a Long Island youth basketball game that could have been pulled right from “The Sopranos” — when they allegedly brawled with another woman over some rude words to her teen son Thursday night.

Kimberly and Gianna Gotti allegedly attacked the victim at Locust Valley High School for shouting insults at her son Joe, who was playing for the visiting Oyster Bay High School team, according to sources and court records.

Both Kimberly, 55, and Gianna, 23, allegedly lunged at the victim, pummeled her and pulled her hair, and at one point called the other team’s players “fa—ts and pussies,” sources said.

The victim suffered “substantial pain to her scalp and bruises to both sides of her face,” according to a complaint filed in Nassau County First District Court.

The judge in the case charged the mother-daughter crew with third-degree assault and let them go on their recognizance during their Friday morning arraignment.

The judge also issued an order of protection meant to keep the infamous mob family members away from the victim in the case, who has not been named.

The Gottis’ attorney, Gerard Michael Mattone, blamed the blowup on the other parent, telling the Post that the woman threw the first punch and had been “badgering” Kimberly’s youngest son. He also denied his client used the homophobic slur.  

“They were making fun as he was playing, and then there was a little bit of a verbal thing that went back and forth between the fans – both sets of parents,” Mattone said. “And this ‘victim’ actually punched Mrs. Gotti. She threw the first punch.”

Mattone insisted that Kimberly is “the nicest lady” and never called the players any names.

“This is supposedly all on video,” Mattone argued. “This lady just went wild. She was uncontrollable. Security could not throw her out and then when she was finally thrown out, she kept coming back into the gymnasium to start more trouble with the Gotti family.”

Once Kimberly took a blow to the face, Gianna – herself a professional basketball player who previously played for Brooklyn College before signing with a team in Portugal – stepped in to break up the fight and help her mom, Mattone said. 

When police responded, they asked the Gotti pair if they would like to press charges – but they declined, Mattone said. 

“The Gottis don’t press charges,” he said. “And that’s why Mrs. Gotti was arrested and the daughter was arrested.”

Their next court date is set for March 6.

“It’s just unfortunate that, you know, you run into a person that’s a little bit of a maniac that has just zero respect for children and punches my client in the face,” Mattone said. “Because the Gottis don’t press charges, my client and her daughter wound up getting arrested. And that’s OK. Because we’ll find it [out] in court.”

Kimberly Gotti is the daughter-in-law of the late mafia boss “Dapper Don” John Gotti — who infamously took control of the Gambino crime family by ordering the killing of boss Paul Castellano at Sparks Steak House in 1985.

He died of throat cancer in federal prison.

John “Junior” Gotti, meanwhile, served six years and five months behind bars for racketeering.

The hulking Queens-bred mafia scion was the target of four federal trials between 2004 and 2009 — all of which ended in mistrials. Federal prosecutors said they would no longer seek cases against him.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/09/metro/kimberly-and-gianna-gotti-charged-with-assault-in-wild-hs-basketball-game-brawl-prosecutors/

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Thursday, February 8, 2024

Bonanno Soldier accused of extortion while awaiting sentencing

  February 08, 2024    Dapper_Don

 

A Bonanno crime family wiseguy didn’t let his arrest in a union shakedown scheme prevent him from committing more extortion and witness tampering, according to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.

John “Bazoo” Ragano, a Bonanno crime family soldier with a criminal history spanning more than two decades, was awaiting sentencing on federal fraud and extortion charges when he extorted a loansharking victim between November 2022 and last July, prosecutors allege.

The indictment against Ragano, filed Feb. 1 in Brooklyn Federal Court, offers scant details about the allegations against him, except to say he engaged in harassing witnesses and witness tampering as well as extortionate collection of credit.

Ragano, 61, also known as “Maniac,” is currently serving a nearly five-year sentence in a low-security federal prison in Loretto, Pa. — after he was busted in a sweeping 2021 mob takedown that netted the entire leadership of the Colombo crime family.

His part of the scheme involved operating two bogus workplace training schools, in Franklin Square, L.I., and Ozone Park, Queens, that sold Occupational Safety and Health Administration certification cards for $500 a pop.

He slashed the tires of a woman he thought might tell law enforcement officials what he was up to, then bragged in a recorded call about how “there’s nothing they can do to me,” according to court filings by prosecutors.

“If she calls the cops and tells them that? I’ll just tell them, ‘Hey, OK, put me in jail, what’s the problem?’ … What are they gonna give me, three years? I’ll do that with my c–k on the bars,” he boasted.

He also took part in a $100,000 loansharking scheme with several Colombo members, and conspired to traffic pot in New York and Florida, prosecutors said.

Ragano’s criminal history dates back to at least 1999, when he was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for kidnapping after he robbed an Ozone Park accounting firm and held several workers there hostage at gunpoint, according to court filings.

He was also sentenced to more than four years in prison after a 2014 racketeering conspiracy case involving the late Vincent Asaro, a Bonanno capo who gained notoriety after he was charged in the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport depicted in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.” In a bombshell 2015 verdict, Asaro was found not guilty of taking part in the $6 million robbery.

Asaro died at age 88 in October.

Ragano has yet to be arraigned in the latest extortion case. Defense lawyer Joel Stein, who represented him in the 2021 case, said he hadn’t heard about the new indictment.

“This is all news to me,” he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/bonanno-mobster-accused-of-extortion-while-awaiting-sentencing-in-earlier-nyc-case/ar-BB1hVObB

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Sunday, February 4, 2024

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