Bonanno mobster nabbed: FBI busts deli owner 'Mike the Butcher' Virtuoso on extortion charges
A Bonanno gangster who owns a Brooklyn butcher shop apparently had a hard time keeping the loin of beef separate from loanshark beefs.
The FBI busted Michael (Mike the Butcher) Virtuoso early Tuesday on extortion charges linked to his Graham Ave. Meats & Deli in Williamsburg - which has a sandwich called "The Godfather" on the menu.
Agents seized $24,000 in cash and a ledger book with notations - one for "groceries" and another for "cash," with numerical amounts next to the names of victims, the federal complaint says.
"The page appears consistent with Virtuoso's practice ... of separately recording the victim's grocery tab and the cash loans the victim obtained from Virtuoso," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Frank said in court papers.
Virtuoso also met with at least one victim in the walk-in freezer of the butcher shop to collect loanshark payments and threatened others in wiretapped calls.
Brooklyn Federal Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom ordered Virtuoso held without bail because he is still on supervised release for a 2009 extortion conviction.
Virtuoso allegedly resumed collecting loanshark payments as soon as he was sprung from prison, including money from deadbeats who stopped paying while he was doing time.
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