Turncoat’s Testimony Could Prove Deadly

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The New York Sun

The dance card for turncoat capo Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo is filling up rather quickly.


DiLeonardo, who provided devastating testimony against Gambino boss Peter Gotti last month, is poised to do the same for his closest gangster friend, John A. “Junior” Gotti, and several cohorts later this year.


And while the stakes will be high for Gotti – he faces 130 years if convicted of plotting to kill radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa and two others during his reign as a stand-in boss for his late father – they could be the ultimate for another high-profile target, acting Colombo boss Alphonse Persico.


Persico, son of the imprisoned-for-life official Colombo family boss, Carmine “Junior” Persico, faces the possibility of execution if found guilty of slaying onetime underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo. A final decision about capital punishment is many months away, but a Brooklyn federal judge, Sterling Johnson, has already assigned special court-appointed death penalty counsel and investigators to help represent Persico, 50, and John “Jackie” DeRoss, 67, who is also eligible for the death penalty.


DiLeonardo, who last month told of several mob sit-downs with Persico during his six days on the witness stand in the trial of Peter Gotti, has evidence linking Persico to Cutolo’s May 26, 1999, demise, according to a secret FBI document obtained by Gang Land.


Among other reasons, Persico allegedly orchestrated Cutolo’s execution as retaliation for starting a bloody family war in the early 1990s, and to put to rest any possibility that the tough, charismatic gangster could make a move to take over the family.


A few days after Cutolo disappeared – his body has never been found – he was supposed to meet Mikey Scars to iron out problems between the families regarding LaQuilla Construction, a concrete company that DiLeonardo testified was “on record” with the Colombos but was also making payoffs to the Gambino family.


When he and Gambino soldier Edward Garafola arrived for their session with Cutolo, they were greeted instead by Persico and DeRoss, Cutolo’s replacement as underboss, according to a report by FBI agent William Hekel.


After getting settled, DiLeonardo asked why Cutolo, who had been his family’s point man in their joint rackets involving LaQuilla, wasn’t there, wrote Mr. Hekel.


“You haven’t heard? He’s been missing for a week,” said DeRoss.


“Don’t worry about Billy,” Persico chimed in. “You’ll be dealing with us now.”


After Mikey Scars and Garafola had left the meeting in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn – DiLeonardo recalled that they left with between $20,000 and $25,000 – “both expressed the opinion that Cutolo had been killed,” wrote Mr. Hekel.


***


Mob lawyer Larry Bronson, who often told wiseguys that friends in high places would help him win great deals for his clients, tossed out another fanciful boast in Brooklyn Federal Court last week on behalf of Bonanno soldier Louis “Louie Ha Ha” Attanasio.


Claiming that Attanasio was kidnapped by FBI agents at his Caribbean hideaway in St. Maarten, Mr. Bronson told Judge Nicholas Garaufis that he hoped to obtain justice for Louie Ha Ha in Caribbean courts and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.


Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitra Hormozi didn’t object to those lofty aspirations, expressing more interest in the murder and racketeering charges that Louie Ha Ha faced in Brooklyn, now that he was finally in court – nearly a year after he was indicted.


When she noted that the feds would move to disqualify Mr. Bronson from representing Attanasio in the Brooklyn case for a number of reasons, Mr. Bronson quickly interrupted, halting her presentation.


“That’s not necessary,” said Mr. Bronson, telling Judge Garaufis that he had no intentions of trying the case, in which Attanasio is charged with the 1984 slaying of capo Casear Bonventre, whose remains were later found in three 55-gallon drums in Garfield, NJ.


Mr. Bronson, already under investigation for obstruction of justice and criminal contempt allegations, had good reasons to cut the prosecutor off.


Gang Land has learned that the feds are also investigating allegations that Mr. Bronson misappropriated funds from other clients and lawyers and are looking to make a federal extortion case out of the lawyer’s alleged sexcapades with a former client who is charged with secretly importing Russian women into America to work as topless dancers.


Mr. Bronson, 59, is slated to appear in Brooklyn Criminal Court today on state coercion charges of threatening to sabotage an extortion case against the former client, Viktoriya I’lina, if she didn’t sleep with him. At the time of the alleged threats, Mr. Bronson represented Ms. I’lina in a federal indictment that is still pending in New Jersey.


Mr. Bronson would face greatly enhanced penalties if the feds could bring an extortion charge and make it stick. The current state charge carries a maximum sentence of one year; an extortion rap could mean up to 20 years in a federal prison.


As Gang Land disclosed last year, the feds are investigating criminal contempt and other charges because Mr. Bronson allowed wise guys who were under court order to avoid contact with each other to use his office for mob sit-downs. On May 14, 2003, Mr. Bronson facilitated a get-together between Attanasio and capo James “Louie” Tartaglione, according to a tape recording of the meeting made by Tartaglione, who was then working for the FBI.


During the session, according to a report by FBI agents Gregory Massa and Joseph Bonavolonta, Mr. Bronson wrote down the names of Attanasio and two other suspects the feds had in the Bonventre murder and then set the paper on fire and threw it into a trash can, placing his finger over his mouth in a “keep quiet” motion.


At his arraignment Friday, a tanned but scowling Attanasio declined to enter a plea, supporting Mr. Bronson’s claim that he was illegally removed from the Dutch colony on trumped up charges.


Mr. Bronson, who has previously denied any improprieties, did not respond to repeated calls from Gang Land about both his and Attanasio’s cases.


Outside the courtroom last week, however, Mr. Bronson insisted that because Louie Ha Ha was living in St. Maarten when the indictment was filed last January, his client was not a fugitive from justice, giving Daily News reporter John Marzulli the following analogy: “If you were in China and you heard there was an indictment against you, would you come back to New York or would you stay in China and open a Chinese restaurant?”


***


Like President Bush’s first nominee for secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff has recognizable connections to Mayor Giuliani and the mob.


Unlike Bernard Kerik, who reportedly used connections with the owner of a mob-connected construction company to get jobs for his brother and a friend, Judge Chertoff was a no-nonsense federal prosecutor – he was the lead prosecutor in the historic Commission case – who sent wiseguys to jail.


In dealings with Judge Chertoff, first as an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan and later as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Gang Land always found him to be approachable, articulate, and unafraid to answer tough questions about difficult decisions he has made over the years.


The New York Sun

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