Xaverian Coaches Had Criminal Records/Mob Ties
The New York Post reports further details concerning an investigation by the Brooklyn DA's office into a suspected mob-tied online sports betting ring in which the names of two Xaverian High School baseball coaches have surfaced:
Undercover cops posing as bettors forked over payments ranging from $200 to $2,000 to freshman baseball coach Gerard Bruzzese, 46, in some cases just half a block from the Bay Ridge Catholic school's ball fields, the sources said. * * * Bruzzese was hired by Dennis Canale, the respected head coach of the successful Xaverian baseball program. * * * As The Post reported yesterday, Canale, 67, resigned late last year as coach after the Brooklyn DA's Office filed court papers outlining Bruzzese's involvement in a multimillion-dollar illegal sports-betting Web site, nysportswager.com. Canale's on medical leave as building manager. Sources said Canale's name has surfaced in the current gambling investigation. * * * The gambling probe began when investigators tried to infiltrate a Colombo-family sports-betting operation, but were instead put in touch with Bruzzese's -- which is allegedly linked to a Gambino associate, Alfredo "Dark Al" Correa.
Incredibly, both Bruzzese and Canale, a retired NYPD cop, were employed at Xaverian notwithstanding their alleged criminal records:
Bruzzese, who resigned after last season, was hired as a coach at Xaverian despite a guilty plea to securities fraud -- a felony. He served a year in the federal pen from 2000 to 2001. That guilty plea came after he was charged, along with 84 others, in the Colombo- and Russian-mob-linked pump-and-dump stock-fraud operation. * * * Canale, too, had a prior brush with the law before he was hired as Xaverian's baseball coach and building manager. He was busted in 1996 on possession of gambling records, but pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, sources said.
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