L.I. 'SOPRANOS' BUSTED
[From The New York Post] -- A Long Island crime family lived like the
Sopranos - complete with their own version of the Bada Bing strip club and
secret mob confabs at the high school football games of the underboss' son,
authorities said yesterday.
Suffolk County DA Thomas Spota said he hopes the roundup of 14 suspects and
the impending arrests of several others "sends a searing message" to the mob.
He said the biggest organized-crime crackdown by Long Island officials in
20 years began when a strip-club owner complained to authorities.
The owner of Sinderella's strip club and adult-movie rental business in
Brentwood said a mobster put a gun to his head and announced his business
now belonged to the mob.
During the nine-month investigation, the probers found that the mobsters
used cell phones they thought were "laundered" and safe from police
surveillance.
But authorities were able to listen in on crime conferences of reputed
Luchese crime-family underboss Joseph Caridi, of East Northport.
Asked if Caridi, 53, and his associates were real-life Sopranos, Spota said:
"Absolutely. We have an underboss who lives in suburbia, like Tony Soprano
. . . going to football games with other mobsters," Spota said. "They're
not football dads, but they look like football dads."
Authorities said the mobsters arranged meetings at football games where
Caridi's son played.
"What's the name of the [Sopranos] place?" Spota said. "The Bada Bing?
They've got Sinderella's."
The 14 arrests announced yesterday were for racketeering, loan sharking,
gambling and other crimes. Almost $70,000 in cash as well as computers and
business records were seized.
Suffolk Police Commissioner John Gallagher said he hoped the arrests will
de-glamorize organized crime in the public's eye.
"Every Sunday, millions of Americans invite 'The Sopranos' into their
living rooms," but they wouldn't invite real-life mobsters into their
homes, Gallagher said.
The mob is "dirty, vicious," he said. "It reaches out to ordinary citizens
and terrorizes them . . . it leaves people broken and their lives ruined."
Spota said a West Hempstead cell phone store, Simply Cellular, provided
Luchese members with "laundered" cell phones in other people's names in a
failed attempt to foil surveillance.
The manager of the store denied knowingly supplying cell phones to the mob.
"It's very tough to monitor who we're giving phones to," said the manager,
who asked not to be named. "It's not our business to know about their
private life. These people don't walk around with labels."
More on the "Sopranos"; "These Are Bums; These Are Thugs"
[A Newsday report names names] In an aggressive operation that outwitted
its targets, authorities rounded up more than a dozen reputed members of
the Luchese organized crime family Wednesday and Thursday, Suffolk District
Attorney Thomas Spota said.
The district attorney's office hit at the top of the family. The arrests
included its alleged underboss, Joseph Caridi, 53, of 17 Karin Court, East
Northport. Among the search warrants executed was one on the Brooklyn home
of the Luchese family's alleged acting boss, Louis Daidone, who was not
arrested.
Fourteen arrests were made and searches were conducted over the past two
days at more than a dozen locations in Suffolk, Nassau, Brooklyn and
Queens, Spota said. Caridi and several others were charged with enterprise
corruption, the state equivalent of federal racketeering charges. Others
were charged with gambling, usury or coercion. More arrests are expected.
"We are investigating construction payoffs, bid rigging and restaurant
extortion," Spota said. "Based upon this investigation ... I hope that this
sends a searing message to those in the Luchese organization and those
attracted to this lifestyle by [the television show] 'The Sopranos.' If
they're attracted to this lifestyle, we're coming after them."
Spota and Suffolk Police Commissioner John Gallagher said the real-life
Lucheses resembled the popular show in superficial ways. Both operate in
the suburbs. Both Caridi and his TV counterpart talked business while at a
high school football game. And both took over adult-themed businesses.
This investigation began earlier this year when Robert Scherer, the owner
of Sinderella's, an adult- entertainment complex in Brentwood, came to the
district attorney's office and told how he had been pushed out by the Lucheses.
"He was removed from his place of business by force," Assistant District
Attorney James Chalifoux said. "He had a gun placed against his head and
was told not to return."
But John Ray, the Miller Place attorney representing James Bozart, one of
five charged with enterprise corruption, said his client and co-defendant
Milton Bialostok were legitimate partners of Scherer's. In fact, Ray said,
it was Scherer who tried to evict Bozart and Bialostok by force, but they
sued in August to get Scherer removed from the business.
"We went by the law and the law sided with us," Ray said, who described
enterprise corruption charges against his client as "bogus." Investigators
said the organized crime ring took about $5,000 a week from the business.
But that was just part of their take. Assistant District Attorney Craig
Pavlick estimated that officials have seized about $2 million in criminal
assets, including real estate. They expect to garner more.
Indeed, at a news conference yesterday in Hauppauge, officials spoke from
behind a table loaded with a sampling: about $70,000 in cash, a large bag
of marijuana, ledger books, computers, dice, a switchblade and a
.25-caliber semiautomatic handgun.
The investigation also revealed the ring allegedly had been running sports
gambling and loan sharking operations for several years. Police used
electronic surveillance and interviews with sources to gather information
until they executed warrants yesterday and Wednesday to seize paperwork at
14 area locations.
"We have plenty of business records," Spota said. "They're very
interesting." Spota said his office also was successful in getting around
mob efforts to avoid surveillance. For example, some in the crime ring
constantly changed cell phones, switching accounts and numbers at a
business associated with them, Simply Cellular in West Hempstead, where
records were seized, Spota said. But Spota said investigators were a step
ahead.
"We were listening," Spota said. "They think that because they change them
so often, we're not keeping up with them. But we are."
The loan sharking sometimes fed off the gambling, which was run through a
wire room in Costa Rica, officials said. Bettors would pay debts or get
cash from mob-employed runners they would meet locally, Chalifoux said.
Besides Caridi, four men have been charged with enterprise corruption. They
are: Aniello Colello, 68, of 57 Waldo Ave., East Rockaway; Ronald Galiano,
59, of 156-53 75th St., Howard Beach; Bialostok, 77, of 759 Wilson Court,
North Woodmere; and Bozart, 62, of 594 E. 54th St., Brooklyn. They face 81
/3 to 25 years in prison if convicted.
District Court Judge William Rebolini set bail for Caridi at $100,000 cash
or $500,000 bond; $25,000 cash or $250,000 bond for Colello; $25,000 cash
or $250,000 bond for Galiano; $15,000 cash or $150,000 bond for Bialostok;
and $7,500 cash for Bozart.
Gallagher emphasized that real-life organized crime isn't as glamorous as
it is on the HBO show.
"We see them as brighter than they are," Gallagher said. "The real
enterprise is dirty, vicious. It reaches out to regular citizens and
terrorizes them. These are bums. These are thugs."
The Dirty Side of Porn - People Who Smoke!
XXX Reporter writes: "Why do some smokers NOT RESPECT THE RIGHTS of those
who don't?"
I am just getting back home from a shoot tonight and I smell like a fucking
ash tray! My fucking clothes stink, my throat hurts, my nose is running, my
eyes are burning and now I have a fucking headache. All this because of a
couple of cigarette smoking fuckwads who don't respect the rights of people
who don't smoke enough to take their fucking nasty habits outdoors.
Sometimes I wonder what people in this industry use for fucking brains. I
can't believe how many smokers there are in this industry who don't think
twice about lighting up a cancer-stick on a "closed set" environment
without even asking if it will bother anyone. God damn wake the fuck up you
people and get a fucking clue.
If your are one of those smokers who could give a shit about those of us
who don't smoke and who don't take into consideration that some of us don't
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PIECE OF SHIT SCUMBAG
COCKSUCKING PUSSY MOTHER FUCKER!"
And for those smokers out there who are gracious enough NOT to force those
around you to be put thru the bullshit that I went through tonight I say
THANK YOU. You are a rare breed indeed.... RUDE SMOKERS SUCK!
XxXReporter
Guns don't kill people...Cell phones kill people.pr.
