True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Notorious Mob Killer ‘Gaspipe’ Casso Denied Compassionate Release for COVID-19

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Anthony ‘Gaspipe’ Casso was implicated in as many as three dozen gangland slayings

A notorious killer-turned-Mob rat will remain behind bars for the rest of his life because he remains a “danger to the community” even while hooked up to a ventilator due to COVID-19, a federal judge ruled.

Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso — whom the feds say took part in as many as three dozen Mob hits for the Lucchese crime family — contracted the coronavirus earlier this month at a maximum-security federal prison in Arizona, and has been clinging to life at a local hospital.

The 78-year-old mafia executioner turned rat himself after pleading guilty in a wide-ranging racketeering case in 1994, but the feds dropped him from the witness protection program after he broke a cooperation agreement several times. Casso was then sentenced to more than 400 years in prison.

His reign of terror as one of the mob’s most feared killers was so brutal that even the threat of imminent death from coronavirus doesn’t qualify Casso for compassionate release, Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederick Block ruled. 

“The court has carefully considered the gravity of defendant Antony Casso’s medical condition. But even assuming it presents an extraordinary and compelling circumstance, the court finds, in light of the nature and extent of the defendant’s criminal history, that he remains a danger to the community,” Block wrote.

Casso’s lawyers argued that he was already confined to a wheelchair, has prostate cancer, is awaiting a heart operation and had lung issues.

At the Tucson prison, 148 inmates have COVID-19 and two have already died of the disease. More than 400 other inmates have recovered, but it’s not clear Casso will rejoin them.

“Just days ago, he tested positive for COVID-19. He is currently hospitalized due to severe respiratory problems,” wrote Casso’s lawyers. “His COVID-19 infection and rapidly deteriorating health require better medical care than [Bureau of Prisons] can provide.”

Casso has been hospitalized and returned to the prison three times, but now remains in an emergency room hooked up to a ventilator, his lawyers said.

There was little sympathy for Casso at the courthouse, with the feds claiming that he unsuccessfully tried in the 1990s to have a federal judge and a prosecutor handling his case bumped off.

“All defendants sentenced to life in prison will, at some point, begin to succumb to one disease or another, or suffer from failing health due to old age,” wrote federal prosecutors in response to Casso’s application for release.

New Italian Crime Family Accused of Extorting the Dead

By HardBoiledNews Staff

FOGGIA, Italy — They even shook down the dead.

Prosecutors have warned of a new crime family emerging in southern Italy who went so far as to extort $60 from funeral homes for every coffin they sold.

Police in the Italian region of Puglia have attempted to break up the Foggia organization with dawn raids across the region, in which some 40 alleged members of a criminal family were arrested.Italian authorities have described the gang as the country’s “public enemy number one.”

Investigators say the family has emerged as a “fifth mafia” alongside more established criminal organizations like the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the ’Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Camorra in Naples and the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia.

The suspects, including the clan leaders Federico Trisciuoglio and Pasquale Moretti, were held on suspicion of belonging to a mafia organization, usury and extortion against entrepreneurs and shopkeepers, including funeral homes, the Guardian reported.

According to prosecutors, the Foggia clans required funeral homes to pay $60 for each body.

 “The mafia even managed to bribe an employee of the local administration who provided them every day with a list of people who died in the city,” said Ludovico Vaccaro, head prosecutor of Foggia.

Vaccaro said that extortion had become increasingly pronounced in recent months, with the bosses taking “advantage of the difficulty entrepreneurs are finding themselves in during this pandemic.” Mobsters offered them loans with interest rates of over 400%.

“The Foggia mafia has become the number one public enemy of the state,” said the national anti-mafia prosecutor, Federico Cafiero De Raho. “But the state’s response against these bosses is getting stronger.”

A series of car bombings in Foggia in February prompted the interior ministry to send a team of anti-mafia investigators to Puglia.

“The Foggia mafia is relatively young,” Vaccaro said earlier this year. “The clans that make up this organization have been embedded in this territory for at least 30 years. We cannot compare them to the historical Italian mafia groups like Cosa Nostra and ’Ndrangheta, but it is a mafia characterised by a high degree of aggression and violence. It is what I call a primitive mafia – one that feeds cadavers to pigs, so as not to leave a trace.”

The Foggia mafia began its rise in the late 1970s, when the head of the Neapolitan mafia, Raffaele Cutolo, met a delegation of local criminals in Puglia with the goal of  expanding his empire into the contraband cigarette trade in the Balkans.

Today, at least three criminal sub-groups operate in the area around the city of Foggia. Besides the Società Foggiana, which profits from extortion and drug-dealing, there is the Cerignola clan, known for its armored car heists and cocaine smuggling, and another group active around Gargano, on the spur of Italy’s “boot,” where 80% of killings go unsolved and whose bosses are believed to have killed 360 people.

“Today’s operation is important because it finally allows us to send a message to the entrepreneurs who are being oppressed by these mobsters,” said Vaccaro. “This operation must give them the courage to rebel and collaborate with the authorities. Only like this can we finally get rid of a mafia that is impoverishing our territory.”

Russia’s Sausage King Killed in Crossbow Attack

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Vladimir Marugov owned some of Russia’s largest sausage factories

MOSCOW —  The Sausage King is dead. All hail the king.

Several intruders broke into a sauna at the home of a Russian meat tycoon known as the “Sausage King,” tied him and a woman up and demanded money before killing him with a crossbow, authorities said.

The woman managed to escape the attack in the Moscow region and alert the police but when officers arrived, 54-year-old Vladimir Marugov, owner of the “Ozyorsky” and “Meat Empire” sausage factories, was dead.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said the intruders had demanded that Marugov hand over cash kept at his home but then opened fire with the crossbow before fleeing in a car.

Investigators managed to find the weapon and the getaway vehicle in a village in the suburbs of Istra, a town west of Moscow where some affluent Russians have weekend homes.

Police say they have taken a 49-year-old Moscow man into custody in connection to the slaying.

Teen Stabs Grandmother as She Sleeps, Steals $23 From Her Purse

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Brandon Foster is in deep trouble for stabbing his grandmother

ALBION, New York — What part about “love your grandmother,” didn’t he get?

An upstate New York teen has been charged with breaking into his grandmother’s house, stabbing and choking her, before stealing money from her purse.

Seventeen-year-old Brandon Foster’s attack on his grandmother, Rachael Spearance, early Sunday, triggered a massive manhunt that ended hours later when cops found the teen cowering in some bushes behind a Burger King.

Cops say that Foster forced his way into his grandmother’s house by climbing on a chair and forcing the window open. Once inside, he allegedly made his way to granny’s bedroom and attacked her with a knife as she slept.

Spearance began fighting back, so Foster placed her in a choke hold, cops said, according to the Batavia Daily News. But she managed to fight her way free and, despite bleeding profusely, drove to a local hospital.

The teen then stole $23 from her purse and fled the house, cops said.

Spearance  was taken by Mercy Flight to Erie County Medical Center and remains in serious but stable condition.

After searching for several hours, police dogs were able to track Foster, cornering him some bushed behind Burger King. He then surrendered peacefully.

Foster is charged with first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, first-degree burglary, criminal obstruction of breathing and petit larceny. He has been held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

 

Brooklyn Mobsters Threatened Doc to Write Scripts for 230K Oxycodone Pills

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The mobsters admitted capitalizing on the opioid epidemic

NEW YORK — Two mobsters strong-armed a Brooklyn doctor into writing prescriptions for hundreds of thousands of Oxycodone pills by threatening to put a bullet in his head if he stopped, federal prosecutors said.

Anthony Grado, a 54-year-old foot soldier in the Luchese family, was caught on tape telling the doctor that he would feed him “to the f**king lions” if he ever wrote prescriptions without the family’s permission, prosecutors said.

The shakedown came to light as Grado and his accomplice, Lawrence Tranese, 55, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone in Brooklyn federal court.

The men admitted that they enlisted the help of other gangsters to fill the prescriptions and they would then sell them, the US Attorney’s office said. In all, they purloined 230,000 of the highly addictive pills through the scheme.

Grado used a mixture of threats and violence to keep the doctor in line.  At one point, Grado was recorded saying, “I’ll put a bullet right in your head,” if the doctor’s new prescription pads “go in anybody’s hands” but his.

Later, the doctor was stabbed by a Luchese associate on Grado’s orders, prosecutors said.

“Lucchese family member Grado imperiled our community, threatening a doctor to force him to write prescriptions for Oxycodone and then trafficking in the addictive drugs,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue. “Violent threats to a doctor by Mafia defendants, combined with their trafficking of Oxycodone pills, posed an especially serious danger to our community.”

The defendants face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million when sentenced.

 

‘Goodfellas’ Gangster Hit With 8-Year Sentence in Road Rage Arson Case

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Vincent Asaro, a Bonanno capo, was acquitted in 2015 of a role in the famed Lufthansa heist

NEW YORK — A longtime captain in the Bonanno crime family was sentenced to eight years in prison for ordering his henchman –including famed Mobster John Gotti’s grandson — to set fire to the car of a man who had cut him off in traffic.

Vincent Asaro, 82, had been acquitted two years ago of taking part in the legendary Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1978 — a crime made famous in the film “Goodfellas” — but couldn’t escape justice this time.

He was also acquitted in 2015 of the 1969 of Paul Katz, who operated a warehouse used by the mob to store stolen goods and who later was later suspected of having become a government informant.

A made member of the Bonanno family for 40 years, prosecutors alleged that Asaro continued to engage in loan sharking even at his advanced age. In the end, the judge gave Asaro a sentence twice as long as federal guidelines suggested.

“I don’t care what happens to me at this point,” Asaro told the judge in Brooklyn federal court as he was being sent away. ‘What you sentenced me to is a death sentence anyway.’

Asaro was ultimately done in by a chance encounter in 2012 in Queens when another motorist cut him off at a traffic light. Asaro gave chase at high speed but the man got away.

Asaro then contacted an associate with access to law enforcement databases who was able to pinpoint the motorist’s home address using his license plate number. Asaro then dispatched three people — including the Dapper Don’s grandson, John J. Gotti, to torch the man’s car in his driveway.

Asaro pleaded guilty in June 2017. Gotti, 23, was hit with an eight-year sentence in March for running a multi-million dollar Oxycodone ring.

Ambulance of Death Driver Killed Patients for Cash From Mob-Run Funeral Homes

By HardBoiledNews Staff

BIANCAVILLA, Italy — A murderous ambulance driver has been accused of killing patients in order to steer their families to Mafia-run funeral homes in Sicily in return for a kickback, police said.

The 42-year-old driver, Davide Garofalo, is a suspect in three cases where patients he was transporting died, but that up to 50 deaths were under investigation with a dozen deemed “meaningful,” Italian police said.

According to Italian press accounts, Garofalo would inject air bubbles into the victims’ bloodstream, causing them to suffer an embolism. In many of the cases, the patients were terminally ill and were being transported back home from a hospital to die in the Sicilian town of Biancavilla.

The public prosecutor’s office in Catania said Garofalo received 300 euros ($356) for every patient he successfully steered to certain Mob-run funeral homes.

Davide Garofalo

Investigators believe the scheme had been going on since 2012, and the driver was only caught after an informant told authorities.

Mafia Wise Guy Busted in Bizarre Prison Escape Plot

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Christopher Londonio already faces life in prison

NEW YORK — Escape from Alcatraz it wasn’t.

A reputed Mafia henchman was busted plotting an elaborate old-school escape from a federal lockup that involved dental floss, a rope fashioned from bed sheets and enlisting the help of a priest.

Prosecutors say Lucchese family soldier Christopher Londonio, who was in the clink at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting trial on murder and racketeering charges, was done in by a fellow inmate who ratted him out to authorities.

Londonio, 43, and another inmate allegedly hatched a plan in June to solicit the help of a priest to smuggle in a hacksaw blade, while using dental floss as a cutting tool to tamper with a window and stockpiling sheets to make into a rope, prosecutors said.

But jail officials caught wind of the plot before they could escape.

“Someone facing federal charges of murder, extortion, racketeering, and a litany of other crimes may feel a certain desperation to attempt breaking out of jail to avoid justice,” said FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney Jr. “However, the outlandish choice of dental floss, and even allegedly asking a priest to assist in the escape defies comprehension.”

Londonio had previously charged with fellow mobster Terrence Caldwell with the execution murder of longtime Mafia hitman Michael Meldish in the Bronx in 2013.

Londonio faced life in prison on the prior murder and racketeering charges and now faces an additional five years behind bars if convicted of attempted escape.

Like Grandfather, Like Grandson: 3rd Generation Gotti Sent to Prison

By HardBoiledNews Staff

John J. Gotti has opted to join the family business of going to jail

NEW YORK — The famed Gotti crime clan is keeping up the family tradition with the Teflon Don’s grandson, John J. Gotti, getting hit with an 8-year sentence for dealing Oxycodone.

The Queens District Attorney’s office said Gotti was caught on tape claiming to regularly move $100,000 worth of the illicit pharmaceuticals a month and that he took in up to $1.6 million a year.

Gotti is now the third generation of his family to be sent to the big house, following his grandfather, one-time Gambino family crime boss John Gotti, who died behind bars, and his uncle John “Junior” Gotti.

Investigators were able to unwind the 23-year-old Gotti’s criminal enterprise through undercover drug buys, round-the-clock surveillance and the use of phone taps and a listening device that had been installed in Gotti’s Infiniti G35 sedan.

Through the surveillance, cops were able to listen in on Gotti bragging about selling 4,200 pills of oxy a month at prices ranging from $21 to $30 a pill. He also blurted out that he kept detailed records of his business and $200,000 in cash at a pal’s house to avoid it being discovered by cops.

‘Teflon Don’ John Gotti died in prison

Last year, undercover cops purchased $46,000 worth of pills from Gotti in 11 undercover deals.

The enterprise came tumbling down in June, when cops stopped Gotti in Howard Beach for driving with excessively tinted windows. When officers discovered Gotti was driving with a suspended license, they searched his car hey found 200 oxy pills, steroids, Xanax, methadone, marijuana and a pile of cash.

 

John ‘Junior’ Gotti had four racketeering cases end in mistrial but served about five years for loansharking and extortion

That led investigators to execute search warrants on Gotti’s home and the home of the pal he had discussed on the tape where they found hundreds of pills, more than $250,000 in cash and the ledger book.

Following his arrest, Gotti told the New York Daily News that he was heavily addicted to painkillers and had to go into rehab in jail as he awaited trial.

Gotti pleaded guilty in February and was ordered to forfeit the approximately $260,000 in drug proceeds seized by cops. Eight other people charged in the case are awaiting trial.

 

‘Hitman’ Convicted in 1989 Gangland Slaying Dies on California Death Row

By HardBoiledNews Staff

James David Majors had been convicted of killing three in California but had been accused of killing several more in Arizona

SAN QUENTIN, California — He beat them to the punch.

A death row inmate in California has died, but not at the hands of the state.

James David Majors, 69, who had been on death row since 1991,  was pronounced dead Thursday morning at a hospital near San Quentin State Prison, the California Department of Correction announced.

The cause of death was being investigated.

Majors was sentenced to die by a Sacramento County jury for the gangland drug slayings of Thomas Probst, Jeanine Copeland and Patrick Mungavin in Fair oaks in 1989

Authorities had charged Majors and his accomplice, Robert Reese, of traveling to California from Arizona to buy a pound of methamphetamine from the three victims. Once inside the home, the men shot and killed the victims and stole cash, drugs and jewelry from a safe.

The victims were later discovered by Copeland’s 8-year-old son.

A month after the killings, Reese was found shot to death in Arizona. A Phoenix restaurant owner and crime syndicate member, Giuseppe “Joe” Calo, pleaded guilty in 1992 to the murders of Reese and six others. He told authorities that Majors had been the hitman in all seven killings, at the orders of local drug dealers, although he was never charged.

Corrections officials say that of the 888 people sentenced to die in California since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1978, 71 have died of natural causes. Another 25 have committed suicide and eight died of other causes. The cause of death in two cases, including Majors’, remains pending.

In total, California has executed 13 condemned inmates since 1978, while two other were executed in other states.

Genovese Sports Book, Loansharking and Bootleg Cigarette Syndicate Busted

By HardBoiledNews Staff

13 alleged mobsters were rounded up in early morning raids

NEW YORK — A gang of 13 grizzled gangsters associated with the Genovese crime family were busted for running an intricate ring of illegal sports gambling, loan-sharking and cigarette bootlegging, law enforcement officials said.

The sting, dubbed “Operation Shark Bait,” zeroed in on an illegal offshore sports bookkeeping operation that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says netted the crime family millions in illicit gambling proceeds.

“Despite these Genovese members continued attempts to evade detection, our investigation revealed millions in offshore sports betting, lucrative loan sharking, and tax evasion,” said New York Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill.

The alleged ringleader, long-time mobster Salvatore “Sallie” DeMeo, 76, is a “made member” of the Genovese syndicate and has a rap sheet that dates back to 1984, including busts for a New Jersey bank robbery and a 1996 New York armored car heist back.

Sal DeMeo in a 1984 booking photo

All 13 crime family associates were busted in early morning raids, Schneiderman said.

“No matter how complex or clever the scheme, we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to take down traditional organized crime,” he said.

At the heart of the charges was 4Spades.org, an illegal sports gambling operation run through a wire room in Costa Rica that handled wagers on various college and professional sports.

In addition, six defendants were charged with loansharking and shaking down victims with exorbitant weekly loan rates “which effectively created a high cost debt trap upon any individual who received such a loan,” Schneiderman said. Those charges by themselves carry a maximum penalty of 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison.

Two defendants were also charged with bootlegging more than 30,000 cigarettes for which state and city excise taxes had not been paid.

In 2001, DeMeo went on the lam after 45 Genovese members were named in a sweeping mob indictment. He eventually surrendered, and was released from prison in 2006.

In 1996, he was charged with stealing $400,00 from a bank in Manalpan, N.J. and then ripped off an armored car in New York the following year.

DeMeo featured in an “America’s Most Wanted” segment in 1999 which led to his arrest.