Thursday, February 18, 2010

Genovese crime family: Genovese mob boss indicted on racketeering charges



Anthony "Bingy" Arillotta

reputed former acting boss of the Genovese crime family was indicted today on racketeering charges that include the 2003 murder of Massachusetts mob captain who was believed to have turned rat.

Arthur Nigro, who's currently doing time for extortion, could face the death penalty in the gangland slaying of Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, who was gunned down in the parking lot of a social club in Springfield, Mass.

Genovese associate Frankie Roche pleaded guilty in 2008 to serving as the triggerman -- for a reported $10,000 payment -- and is cooperating with the feds.

At the time of Roche's guilty plea, prosecutors said Bruno -- who led the Genovese family's "Springfield crew" -- was whacked after he fell out of favor "because he was not sending sufficient tribute payments to New York."

Today's Manhattan federal court indictment adds allegations that Bruno was rubbed out "to prevent his communicating to a law enforcement officer and judge of the United States information relating to the commission and possible commission of federal offenses."

Those offenses included "crimes committed by members of the Genovese organized crime family," the indictment says.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said Nigro -- whose nicknames include "Short Guy" and "Little Guy" -- and fellow mobster Anthony "Bingy" Arillotta also helped arrange the hit to "increase their position" in the Genovese crime family.
The Genovese family represented most of the eastern families on the Commission.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Montreal Mafia: Mafia boss Paolo Renda to be freed from prison


Paolo Renda, one of six men who acted as leaders in the Montreal Mafia while the organization was under investigation in Project Colisée, is expected to be released from a penitentiary next week.

The 70-year-old brother-in-law of Vito Rizzuto will soon reach his statutory release date on the two-year sentence he received in October 2008. Renda's release date is set for sometime around Feb. 16.

Federal inmates who are not previously granted parole by the time they reach the two-third mark of their sentence automatically qualify for a release unless they are deemed to be potentially violent offenders. Renda turned down a chance at a parole hearing last year for reasons that were not made public.

In Renda's case, the National Parole Board could only decide whether or not to impose conditions on his release.

Renda pleaded guilty to possession of the proceeds of crime and a related gangsterism charge and received the equivalent of a six-year sentence. But with the time he served behind bars awaiting the outcome of his case in Project Colisée, he was left with only a two-year prison term.

According to a written summary of a recent National Parole Board decision, Renda will not be allowed to communicate with anyone with a criminal record until the end of his sentence which expires on Oct. 16.

Renda, described in the summary as "one of the leading members of the Mafia in Montreal," is also required to supply information about his income and expenses to his parole officer on a monthly basis.

The parole board determined the conditions were necessary to "assure that you keep your distance from the criminal world and the Mafia."



Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Mafia+boss+freed+from+prison/2553155/story.html#ixzz0fZgU84KI

Saturday, February 6, 2010

inside the Mafia: Saint,’ family face extortion charges


PROVIDENCE — Jailed mobster Anthony M. “The Saint” St. Laurent Sr., his wife and son were charged Friday in U.S. District Court with conspiring to commit extortion involving several bookmakers in the Taunton, Mass., area.

The family is charged with extorting “protection” payments from 1988 through Feb. 3, 2009, with St. Laurent Sr. functioning “as the overall leader of this conspiracy,” according to an FBI affidavit, based on bookmakers turned federal witnesses.

Dorothy St. Laurent, 73, was described in the affidavit as the “primary collection agent of the cash extortion payments.” Her son, Anthony St. Laurent Jr., 44, sometimes by verbal threat, sometimes by force, made sure bookmakers stayed in the business and kept payments coming, authorities say.

St. Laurent Sr. is serving a five-year sentence at Federal Medical Center Devens, Mass., for a 2006 conviction on a separate extortion case. He is charged in a pending federal case with trying to hire someone to kill a mob rival, Robert P. DeLuca. St. Laurent Sr. has pleaded not guilty to the murder-for-hire charge.

A short time after they were arrested, Dorothy St. Laurent and her son were brought before federal Magistrate Judge Lincoln D. Almond. He set $10,000 surety bail for St. Laurent Jr., of Cranston, and ordered him to surrender his passport. St. Laurent Jr., who has a previous extortion conviction, was also ordered by Almond to be electronically monitored on home confinement and to not leave the state.

Dorothy St. Laurent was released and cannot leave the state without permission.

An arraignment date for St. Laurent Sr. has not been set.

One of the bookmakers-turned-federal-witness said, according to the FBI affidavit, that he first met St. Laurent Sr. in the 1970s and made payments to, and later, collected payments for St. Laurent Sr. The witness said St. Laurent Sr. once warned that if the bookmaker did not continue payments and was caught taking bets, St. Laurent Sr. would “cut his hands off.”

The bookmaker said that in the 1990s, when the Twin River slot parlor in Lincoln was called Lincoln Park, St. Laurent Sr., banned from there because he was on the Nevada Gaming Commission’s “Black Book” of people barred from Vegas casinos, would sit in the car while his wife did business. He said she would wait inside Lincoln Park for bookmakers who handed her the payments that bought protection for their illegal activities, according to the affidavit. Sometimes, with her husband in prison, she collected payments in a Johnston Stop & Shop parking lot and more recently traveled to Rehoboth to make collections, according to the affidavit.

Typically, the affidavit says, one bookmaker was an intermediary collecting payments from other bookmakers to deliver to St. Laurent Sr.

A second bookmaker turned witness recounted that in the late 1980s he told an intermediary that he was going to stop bookmaking and ended payments to St. Laurent Sr. for about three weeks. St. Laurent Jr. and an unknown male came to the bookmaker’s Taunton business, waited for a customer to leave, and allegedly began hitting the bookmaker with various items on the head and body, the affidavit says.

By September 2008, according to the court document, one of the bookmakers was collecting and paying $4,100 in cash to Dorothy St. Laurent every two weeks in what authorities say was routine practice after St. Laurent Sr. was imprisoned in 2006. In the fall of 2008, the witness agreed to wear a recording device for interactions with Dorothy St. Laurent and St. Laurent Jr. The FBI says it recorded and conducted surveillance of 12 meetings and numerous phone calls between the witness and the mother and son.

On Nov. 25, 2008, the bookmaker, as directed by authorities, told Dorothy St. Laurent in a Rehoboth Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot that other Taunton bookmakers wanted to shut down. Dorothy St. Laurent expressed concern that her husband would “get something going” to see that payment continued and, in doing so, risk “getting in … trouble while he’s in jail,” according to the court document.

The next day, under surveillance, the bookmaker and St. Laurent Jr. met at the Raynham Dog Track near Taunton, and the witness provided names of four bookmakers who the witness said wanted to stop paying protection money. St. Laurent Jr. asked him to get their phone numbers, to “let them know I want to see them” and set up a meeting so “they know I’m visible.”

Monday, February 1, 2010

Flemmi- Bulger: Boston Judge awards $1M to Davis family





A judge slammed “arrogant” and heartless investigators yesterday as he handed out $1 million more to the family of a woman murdered during the reign of Southie mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young wrote that the family of Debra Davis was abandoned by rogue FBI agents.

The judge ruled the Davis’ estate should be awarded $1 million more from the feds, for a total of $1.35 million for her estate. The government has 60 days to appeal.

“I’m surprised, in a very good way,” said attorney Paul Griffin, who represents the Davis family.

Davis, 26, was murdered in 1981 after Bulger became enraged over her dating his partner in crime, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi.
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