Author: William

FBI returns to NY horse farms connected to Gambino crime family investigations

FBI agents were back at two upstate New York horse farms after searching the same properties for bodies last year in connection to federal investigations into the Gambino crime family.

The feds, along with members of the New York State Police and NYPD, descended on the two farms on Hampton Road in Goshen and on Hamptonburgh Road in Campbell Hall on Tuesday morning, witnesses told The Times Union.

Excavators, a police K9 unit and a New York City medical examiner were also on site, video from the scene shows. It’s not clear if anything was found.

The two farms, located about five miles apart, were raided by the FBI last November after a tipster said bodies were buried on the grounds, sources told The Post at the time.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed to The Post that agents from its New York office were at the two addresses on Tuesday, but could not provide additional information about the investigation.

FBI, state police and NYPD returned to the Orange County horse farms on Tuesday. Mark Lieb / Rockland Video Productions
The two horse farms were searched as part of a federal probe into the infamous crime syndicate. Mark Lieb / Rockland Video Productions

Both farms were formerly owned by Giovanni DiLorenzo — who has the same surname as one of the 10 alleged mafiosi from the Gambino crime family indicted in November over accusations they used violent tactics to take over the Big Apple’s garbage hauling and demolition industry.

The Campbell Hall farm is currently owned by Viviane DiLorenzo, according to property records. The Goshen farm is currently owned by GDLI LLC.

Salvatore DiLorenzo was one of 10 alleged Gambino associates indicted on racketeering charges in November in federal court in Brooklyn. Much of the indictment centers on the group’s alleged attempts to extort money from an unidentified garbage company and an unidentified demolition company, starting in late 2017.

The farms are about five miles apart from each other in Goshen and Campbell Hall. Mark Lieb / Rockland Video Productions
Members of the Gambino crime syndicate were indicted in federal court in November. Dennis A. Clark

The defendants include Joseph Lanni, also known as “Joe Brooklyn” and “Mommino,” an alleged captain in the Gambino family; and three alleged Gambino soldiers: Diego “Danny” Tantillo; Angelo Gradilone, also known as “Fifi;” and James LaForte.

They allegedly hospitalized a man in a vicious hammer attack, threatened to saw a business owner in half and tried to burn down a restaurant that had thrown them out, among other crimes, according to the 16-count indictment.

The men were hit with charges including racketeering conspiracy, extortion, witness retaliation, fraud and embezzlement. They each face between 20 and 180 years in prison for the laundry list of alleged crimes.

This article was originally posted here

Italy expands bizarre anti-Mafia program where mob bosses’ kids are forced into foster care

Forget the godfather, meet the foster father.

A bizarre plan hatched 12 years ago by a fed-up Italian judge to force the kids of jailed mafiosi into foster care has worked out so well at keeping them on the straight and narrow that it’s expanding into the birthplace of La Cosa Nostra, the Times of London reported.

“It has been an extraordinary success,” Judge Roberto Di Bella told the outlet in a report Wednesday. “In Catania, kids as young as seven are sent out to be pushers, while parents take out younger children in prams as cover when they are transporting kilos of drugs.

“Now with the new protocol we can expect an important increase in the number of children involved — we can change the destiny of thousands of minors,” he said.


Italian Judge Roberto Di Bella.
Italian Judge Roberto Di Bella launched “Free to Choose” in 2012, which places the children of jailed mobsters with foster families to keep them from inhereting a life of crime. AFP via Getty Images

The controversial plan that was launched in Southern Italy to place kids of Italian mafia bosses with foster families to cut their inherited underworld ties are being tested out in Sicily after about 150 mob-tied children were relocated in Calabria over the years, the Times said.

Called “Free to Choose,” Di Bella hatched the program after growing tired of seeing generation after generation of organized crime figures following in their father’s footsteps.

“There’s a religious baptism and a mafioso baptism which is confirmed when you reach a certain age,” mob writer Antonio Nicaso told the BBC in 2013, shortly after the program launched.

Raised to be hoodlums, the kids included a mafia youngster charged with six murders and others who were ordered to kill their own mothers after they were unfaithful to their jailed mob husbands.

“So this means that often the children of bosses — particularly the firstborn — are predestined to follow in their father’s footsteps,” Nicaso said.

Once pulled free of their criminal birthright, many youngsters flourished, Di Bella found.

“I could see a light in the eyes of some of them,” he said, “and knew they could choose another path.”


Mafia foster care plan moves to Siciliy.
The “Free to Choose” program has placed about 150 children of Italian mobsters into foster care, and is now in Sicily. AFP via Getty Images

First deployed against the Ndrangheta family, the plan had early critics — but eventually even won over some mobsters and saw about 30 mob wives opting to join their kids in state-funded new homes, the report said.

One jailed mob boss went so far as to thank Di Bella for sparing his four grandchildren from ‘The Life.’

“Free to Choose” is now being tried out in Catania, Sicily, once a mafia hotbed.

“This is a historic moment in the fight against the mafia,” said Carlo Nordio, Italy’s justice minister.

This article was originally posted here

RHONJ star Dina Manzo’s ex in hot water again over claims he hired mob goon to rough up her new beau

It’s official: Just when he thought he was out, the feds pulled him right back in.

The ex-husband of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Dina Manzo is facing a new set of federal racketeering charges — just a month after a judge dismissed the last case against him because prosecutors took too long to bring it to trial.

The new charges against Tommy Manzo — outlined in a three-count indictment filed last week in Newark federal court — are much the same as the old charges, which claim he hired a mafioso from the Lucchese crime family to rough up his famous ex’s new beau back in 2015.

Tommy Manzo allegedly had Dina’s new husband beat up twice in two years — and he has separate state and federal cases against him as a result. Thomas P. Costello via NJ Courts via Imagn Content Services, LLC
Dina Manzo with David Cantin, her new husband. @dina

Tommy Manzo will be arraigned in Newark on Tuesday afternoon on one count each of violent crime in aid of racketeering activity, conspiracy to commit an assault with a dangerous weapon and falsifying and concealing records related to a federal investigation.

His attorney, Zach Intrater, declined to comment Monday.

The new indictment is the latest chapter in a years-long drama that began when the feds first indicted the troubled 58-year-old restaurateur in 2020 for allegedly cutting a deal with mob capo John Perna to beat down David Cantin, Dina Manzo’s then-boyfriend.

In return, Tommy Manzo offered a deeply discounted wedding at his catering hall, The Brownstone in Paterson, New Jersey, according to the allegations.

“Manzo was outraged that his former wife became romantically involved with another man,” prosecutors said in court documents. “Rather than accept that, as law-abiding individuals do, Manzo wanted to extract physical revenge. Unwilling or incapable of doing so directly, he leveraged his catering hall.”

Perna and a guy from his crew caught up with Cantin in July 2015 and worked him over with a slapjack in the parking lot of a North Jersey strip mall. The savage attack left Cantin battered and scarred, court documents said.

The Manzo family owns The Brownstone, a catering hall in Paterson, New Jersey. Christopher Sadowski

Perna — who lives in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, and is the son of former mob capo Ralph Perna — pleaded guilty to committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering activity and was sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

He was released last August, according to jail records.

Meanwhile, Manzo remained free on bail as the case against him moved along at a glacial pace.

Reputed mafioso John Perna New Jersey AG

Late last month, federal Judge Susan Wigenton finally dismissed the charges, agreeing with both Manzo’s attorneys and federal prosecutors that the feds had violated Manzo’s rights under the Speedy Trial Act.

But she did so without prejudice — which allowed prosecutors to quickly re-indict the allegedly mob-connected Manzo, who lives in the ritzy New Jersey suburb of Franklin Lakes.

“The charged offenses are unquestionably serious,” Wigenton wrote in her dismissal, adding that the breadth of the alleged crimes and the substantial prison sentence Manzo faces weighed in prosecutors’ favor.

It’s not the only case that threatens to put Manzo — who hails from one of North Jersey’s most infamous families — behind bars.

He still has pending state charges in Monmouth County that allege he and another man broke into Dave and Dina’s home in Holmdel, New Jersey, and beat them with bats before robbing them in May 2017.

The next hearing in that case is scheduled for April 29, state prosecutors told The Post.

Manzo married Dina in 2005, but the couple split later over allegations of Tommy’s infidelity.

Manzo had married Dina in an over-the-top 2005 wedding chronicled on the VH1 reality series “My Big Fabulous Wedding.

But the couple split in 2012 over his alleged infidelity, “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Kim DePaola told The Post in 2020 — though the couple didn’t officially divorce until 2016.

This article was originally posted here