Forty-six members of an organised crime network that included four of New York’s five Mafia families were charged in a large-scale racketeering conspiracy, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday (Aug 4). Arrests were carried out in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Florida.
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A federal indictment unsealed in NY tied 46 defendants to four of the city’s five major Mafia outfits: the Genovese, Gambino, Luchese and Bonanno families.
The indictment listed 46 people as members of the “East Coast LCN Enterprise”, which engaged in crimes including extortion, arson, fraud, firearms trafficking and illegal gambling, among other crimes. Merlino is believed to be the head of the Philadelphia crime family. All the defendants arraigned in Manhattan federal court pleaded not guilty. His longtime lawyer Ed Jacobs, declined to comment on the allegations on account that he hadn’t yet examined the indictment.
The highest-ranking members of the family were dubbed “the administration”, the indictment says – the head of the family, or “boss”, would be assisted by an “underboss” or “consigliere”.
The suspects were all alleged mobsters categorized as “old-school”.
About 40 of them were arrested on Thursday; two were already being held on other charges.
Another suspect, Pasquale “Patsy” Parrello, was accused of ordering an associate to attack a panhandler outside his Bronx restaurant and “break his knees”. The panhandler was “located and assaulted with glass jars, sharp objects and steel-tipped boots, causing bodily harm”, the court papers say.
Afterward one of his cohorts was recorded saying, “Remember the old days in the neighborhood when we used to play baseball?”.
In another instance, Parrello and Israel Torres are accused of conspiring to retaliate against a man who allegedly stabbed Anthony Vazzano in the neck.
Parrello, 72, was one of the leaders of the conspiracy, along with Eugene “Rooster” O’Nofrio, 74, and Joseph Merlino, 54, prosecutors said. Investigators said the conspirators got corrupt doctors to bill insurers for unnecessary and excessive prescriptions for expensive compound creams in exchange for kickbacks.
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In a second indictment unsealed in MA on Thursday, two of the defendants were accused of working for the Genovese family in a separate extortion scheme, along with three other members of the family.
