The arrests marked the largest federal mob takedown in history. Watch video
It was a mob hit like no other.
More than 120 alleged members and associates of seven organized crime families were arrested today in a series of simultaneous, early morning raids spanning from Brooklyn to New Jersey, on charges ranging from murder to loansharking — some involving crimes dating back 20 years or more.
The arrests marked the largest federal mob takedown in history.
Justice Department officials said those charged were connected to all five New York-based crime families: the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese families, along with the New Jersey-based Decavalcante family and New England’s Patriarca crime family.
"We have charged mob associates and mob bosses alike, including the former boss of La Cosa Nostra operations in New England; the street boss, acting underboss, and consigliere of the Colombo family; and the Gambino family consigliere and a member of that family’s ruling panel," said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Despite the high body count, the arrests were not part of a single, unified operation aimed at a vast conspiracy, and none of the names were well-known. Rather, there were 16 separate indictments involving many different cases which officials said all came together at about the same time, including the arrest of the entire leadership of the Colombo family.
Paul J. Fishman, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, said the cases were put together to show the breadth and scope that organized crime still is able to muster.
"It’s a louder message because all of us are doing it at the same time," he said. "This is an organization that continues to regenerate itself like a snake. People get taken out and they find ways get reconstitute their leadership."
Those charged in New Jersey were part of an investigation into corruption on the waterfront, and included a number of individuals indicted late last year. Those defendants were charged with collecting "Christmas tribute" money from dockworkers after they received annual year-end bonuses. Prosecutors described the tribute money as mob kickbacks.
The takedowns and court proceedings that followed played out across the New York metropolitan region like something out of the film Goodfellas, replete with the kind of colorful, made-for-tabloid names that included guys known as Mush, Nooch, Big Mike, Baby Fat Larry, Junior Lollipops, The Claw and Fat Dennis.
At a press conference in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn, some 25 television cameras and at least 50 newspeople crowded a conference room, where Holder and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced the arrests, flanked by the U.S. Attorneys from New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, representatives of the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies. A chart stood on a stand laying out the families busted in the operation.
The crimes cited included a 1981 double murder inside the Shamrock Bar in Woodhaven, Queens; the 1993 murder of Colombo family underboss Joseph Scopo, shot in the passenger seat of a car parked outside his home in Ozone Park, N.Y.; a Suffolk County, N.Y., police officer who tipped off suspects to an upcoming gambling raid; and the trafficking of cocaine and marijuana.
In New Jersey, the 15 individuals charged included Albert Cernadas Sr., who served as both executive vice president of the International Longshoremen’s Association and president of ILA Local 1235 in Newark.
Cernadas, referred to on surveillance tapes as "The Bull," was accused last month of shaking down his members under threats of violence in what was described as a long-running racketeering operation tied to the Genovese crime family. In a 53-count superseding indictment, Cernadas, 75, of Union Township; Nunzio LaGrasso, 60, of Florham Park, the Vice President of ILA Local 1478; and Richard Dehmer, 75, of Springfield, were charged with conspiring to extort ILA members on the New Jersey piers, bookmaking, and loansharking.
Also named was Stephen Depiro, who prosecutors say is a soldier in the Genovese organized crime family. Depiro, 55, of Kenilworth, known as "Beach," was first indicted in New York last April on racketeering charges in connection with the "Christmas tribute" payments.
Authorities say transcripts of secretly recorded phone calls revealed that Edward Aulisi, the son of Vincent Aulisi — who became president of Local 1235 after Cernadas was forced to step down five years ago — assured a reputed mob boss that the tribute money would continue even after Cernadas left, and actually doubled.
Both Vincent, 78, of West Orange, known as "The Vet," and Edward Aulisi, 51, of Flemington, were charged today with extortion conspiracy.
Authorities also said Depiro controlled an overseas sports betting operation, while Dehmer allegedly ran an illegal poker club in Kenilworth. And in a court memorandum filed today, prosecutors said Dehmer was not above threatening physical violence, noting one intended victim who had failed to pay off a gambling debt.
"I guarantee you, he needs his hands to work. He ain’t working no more for a while," said Dehmer, according to a transcript of one wiretapped call.
Also charged in the case were Robert Ruiz, 52, of Watchung, Michael Trueba, 75, of Kearny, Ramiro Quintans, 52, of Basking Ridge, Salvatore LaGrosso, 60, of Edison, all on extortion counts. Anthony Alfano, 76, of Union, and Tonino Colantonio, 32, John Hartmann, 41, and Guiseppe Pugliese, 32, all of Kenilworth, were charged with conspiracy counts linked to illegal gambling.
Thomas Leonardis, the current president of ILA Local 1235, who was charged with extortion, had protested last September in legislative hearings in Trenton against a new program to fight organized crime in the New York harbor region which he claimed would raise the cost of doing business and threaten thousands of jobs. Brandishing an old cargo hook once carried by longshoremen in the days before containerization, Leonardis said the program "only further tars the industry as mob-influenced" — an image he said was as outdated as the cargo hook.
In addition to the mob’s continued infiltration of the waterfront, the indictments sketched out a myriad of fraudulent schemes. In one case, Colombo crime family members allegedly defrauded consumers with poor credit histories. Other charges alleged the shakedown of a concrete industry labor union in New York.
In Florida, 83-year-old Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, who prosecutors say was a longtime Rhode Island mob boss, was arrested and charged with extorting protection payments from Providence strip clubs, including the Satin Doll and the Cadillac Lounge.
In bail hearings in Newark before U.S. Magistrate Judge Claire C. Cecchi, the defendants included the elderly and the young, some balding and white-haired, and others in hoodies and sweatshirts.
Edmund DeNoia, the attorney for Nunzio LaGrasso, said only, "We maintain our innocence and look forward to defending ourselves against the charges."
Thomas Cammarata, the attorney for Leonardis and the ILA local, said, "Obviously he’s pleading not guilty."
Meanwhile, some questioned whether the case was as dramatic as the numbers portrayed.
"It’s plain that law enforcement is drilling down into the lower and middle echelons of what remains of these criminal organizations," remarked Lee Seglem, assistant director of the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation. "The old mob remains a criminal enterprise, but isn’t what it once was. Most of the top leadership is now gone."
By Ted Sherman and Steve Strunsky/The Star-Ledger