Two Former Executive Board Members of Bus Drivers' Union Arrested for Extortion and Unlawful Labor Payments

SALVATORE BATTAGLIA

LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), DANIEL R. PETROLE, Deputy Inspector General of the United States Department of Labor ("DOL"), ANDREW AUERBACH, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the DOL, Office of Labor-Management Standards, and RAYMOND W. KELLY, Police Commissioner of the City of New York, announced that two former executive board members and assistant trustees of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union ("Local 1181"), NICK MADDALONE and PAUL MADDALONE, were arrested today on charges of extortion and violations of the Taft-Hartley Act, which prohibits payments from regulated industries to union officials. NICK and PAUL MADDALONE were arrested this morning attheir homes by Special Agents of the FBI and DOL, Office of the Inspector General, and New York City Police Department ("NYPD") detectives. According to the Indictment unsealed today in Manhattan federal court, where the defendants are expected to appear later today:
Local 1181 is a union which represents approximately 15,000 bus drivers and bus escorts employed by companies that contract with the New York City Department of Education to provide students with school bus transportation to public schools throughout New York City. From at least the 1980s through 2006, the Genovese Organized Crime Family -- a criminal organization that is part of La Cosa Nostra, commonly referred to as the "mafia" -- influenced and asserted control over Local 1181, including by appointing certain individuals to serve as officers for Local 1181. The defendants, who are brothers, served as members, delegates, executive board members, and assistant trustees of Local 1181 -- NICK MADDALONE from approximately 1984 through 2008, and PAUL MADDALONE from approximately 1993 through 2008.From at least the 1980s through 2006, various Local 1181 officers were involved in a wide-ranging scheme to solicit, collect, and receive illegal cash payments of tens of thousands of dollars from bus company owners and operators whose employees were members of Local 1181, and from companies whose employees were not Local 1181 members. The MADDALONES participated in this scheme along with other Local 1181 officers, including SALVATORE BATTAGLIA, who was both President of Local 1181 and a member of the Genovese Organized Crime Family, and JULIUS BERNSTEIN, who was both Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1181 and an associate of the Genovese Organized Crime Family. The MADDALONES and other participants in the scheme used both their union status and, as applicable, their organized crime status, as a means of inducing payment, obtaining tens of thousands of dollars from bus company owners through intimidation, threats, and fear of personal and economic harm.
NICK MADDALONE and PAUL MADDALONE are the fourth and fifth high-ranking Local 1181 officials to be arrested in connection with this investigation. BATTAGLIA pleaded guilty in January 2008 to racketeering, extortion, and Taft-Hartley violations and was sentenced in June 2008 to 57 months in prison. BERNSTEIN pleaded guilty in August 2006 to racketeering, extortion, robbery, gambling, and obstruction of justice, and died before a final judgment was issued in the matter. Former Local 1181 Director of Pension and Welfare ANNE CHIAROVANO pleaded guilty to the obstruction of the FBI's investigation into the connection between Local 1181 and the Genovese Organized Crime Family and was sentenced in January 2007 to five months in prison to be followed by five months of home confinement.
If convicted of the charges alleged in the Indictment, NICK MADDALONE, 54, of Staten Island, New York, and PAUL MADDALONE, 60, of Neponsit, New York, each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the two extortion counts, and five years in prison on each of the two unlawful payment counts. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge JED S. RAKOFF.
Mr. DASSIN praised the work of the FBI; the United States Department of Labor, Office of the Inspector General; the United States Department of Labor, Office of Labor Management Standards; and the NYPD. He said that the investigation is continuing.Assistant United States Attorneys ELIE HONIG and KENNETH POLITE are in charge of the prosecution

Rocco Balliro Mobster

It was one of the best-known Boston shootouts of the 1960’s. Cops cornered prison escapee Rocco Balliro, his twin brother Sal, and an associate at the Roxbury home of Rocco’s ex-con girlfriend Toby Wagner. They tried to shoot their way out, and when it was over, Rocco’s girlfriend and her 7-year-old son were dead. That was in February 1963, and six months later, here he is in custody at Division 1. Handcuffed to Rocco’s left had is Sgt. Tom Gavin of DA Garrett Byrne’s office. On the right is Det. Eddie Walsh, soon to be the cop mentor of future FBI agent Zip Connolly.

Donato "Danny" Angiulo, part of notorious mob family, dies

Former New England Mafia capo regime Donato "Danny" Angiulo, who was part of a powerful mob family that ruled Boston's underworld from the 1960s through the mid-1980s, died Sunday night at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center after a long illness. He was 86.
His brother, Gennaro "Jerry'' Angiulo, was the underboss of the Patriarca crime family until an FBI bug planted in his North End headquarters in 1981 captured conversations about murder, extortion, illegal gambling, and loansharking that led to Boston's first sensational Mafia trial and the end of the Angiulos' reign.
In 1986, a federal jury convicted Donato Angiulo and his brothers, Gennaro and Francesco, who was the mob's accountant, of racketeering charges, and a third brother, Michele, of illegal gambling.
An Angiulo associate was caught on FBI tapes boasting that South Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger and his sidekick, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi were friends of the Mafia and would kill for them. More than a decade later it was revealed that Bulger and Flemmi were longtime FBI informants who had provided information about the interior of Angiulo's headquarters that assisted agents in planting the bug.
Donato Angiulo's nickname was "Smiley," but prosecutors alleged during his trial that he had a fierce reputation on the street and served as a capo regime, running a crew of Mafia soldiers. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for racketeering, gambling and loansharking. He was freed from federal prison in 1997, after serving 11 years, and returned to his Medford home.
"He was a great family man and a very decent guy,'' said Boston attorney Anthony Cardinale, who represented Donato Angiulo's brother, Gennaro, during the eight-month federal racketeering trial.
Cardinale recounted that he had been stricken by a virus and hospitalized just before final arguments were about to get underway in the trial.
"I remember waking up in the hospital and there was Danny, just sitting there...he had come to the hospital and sat there to see how I was,'' Cardinale said. "That was typical of the kind of guy he was."
Before Donato Angiulo became ill and was hospitalized, he often was spotted in the North End, having lunch. He was the son of Sicilian immigrants, who ran a North End grocery store, and was raised on Prince Street with five brothers and a sister.
The Dello Russo Funeral Home in Medford confirmed today that it is handling arrangements for Donato Angiulo and said visiting hours will be Thursday from 4 to 8 pm. at the funeral home. A Mass is scheduled for Friday at 11 a.m. at St. Leonard Church in Boston's North End.

Nick Bianco Mobster

Meet Nicholas Louis Bianco aka “Nicky” aka “ Nicky B” Nicky Bianco was a Gallo Gang shooter before he became a member of the Patriarca Crime Family

Nicky was like Joey Gallo, he was a warrior..His ethos was.”I was born a man, I will die a man”. Unlike the flamboyant Crazy Joey, Nicky was low-key, and level headed.. .In a finger snap, he would kill for Raymond “RayPat” Patriarca Sr.. Raymond loved his composure, and courage, and he moved Nicky up the leader ladder to a spot in the Patriarca high command.. Nicky was Raymond’s acting boss while he was in the slammer
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I knew Nicky and I will go into greater detail in my new book . But here is a tasty tidbit
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Nicky had a ton of heat on him from a beef he had in Providence.. He went west to Hollywood to hide out until things cooled off back home. Nicky stayed with a friend of mine. While he was with my pal, he knifed a guy . I had occasion to meet with Nicky years later. I mentioned this incident to Nicky,
and it knocked him for a loop…. Anthony Fiato

James Genovese -- The life & times of the last great Pittsburgh mobster

On an 82-acre farm in wooded West Deer, the final act in the decades-long drama of the Pittsburgh mafia has played out.
Quietly, of course. That was always the way with the secretive Michael James Genovese.
Consigliere and protege to Sebastian John LaRocca, Mr. Genovese succeeded his mentor in 1984 to become the low-profile head of La Cosa Nostra in Western Pennsylvania, according to the FBI.
He died in 2006 at age 87. But his widow, Jennie Lee Genovese, and his adopted son, Michael A. Genovese (a Post-Gazette truck driver), have been fighting each other over what's left of the estate they both call home.
Jennie and her late husband executed the Genovese Living Trust 21 days before he died, under which she and Michael were co-trustees. But last year she removed him as a beneficiary and kicked him off the property. He challenged her right to deny him his inheritance but lost in Orphan's Court. A county judge ordered that Michael had to move out by March 1.
The property, meanwhile, has fallen into disrepair -- a metaphor of sorts for the decline of the Pittsburgh mob. It used to be a working farm, but when Mr. Genovese died, workmen stopped coming around to maintain it.
It's hard to reconcile this forlorn scene with Michael J. Genovese, who embraced cocaine dealing and oversaw the most lucrative period in mob history here until the feds brought it down with a racketeering case in 1990.
Now old FBI intelligence files, recently released to the Post-Gazette under the Freedom of Information Act, offer new glimpses of his life. Although heavily redacted, they paint a fuller picture than ever before. read more