Bonanno and Genovese mobsters and L.I. cop busted for racketeering charges in lucrative gambling ring
A Genovese crime family soldier known as “Joe Fish” was hooked in a mafia gambling ring takedown, along with a police detective and several other mobsters, the feds said Tuesday.
Family soldier Joseph Marcario was charged with four Genovese colleagues and three members of the Bonanno family for running the betting business from inside legitimate Queens and Long Island businesses across the last decade, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s office announced.
Detective Hector Rosario, 49, of Mineola, L.I., was also charged with taking cash from the Bonannos in return for arranging raids against competing illegal betting parlors — including one based in a rival Genovese-run shoe repair outlet, court papers showed.
“The defendants tried to hide their criminal activities from behind the cover of a coffee bar, a soccer club and a shoe repair store, but our office and our law enforcement partners exposed their illegal operations,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in announcing the arrests.
“Even more disturbing is the shameful conduct of a detective who betrayed his oath of office ... when he allegedly aligned himself with criminals,” Peace said.
Court documents indicated the two organized crime families, in an unusual arrangement, collaborated on collecting some $10,000 in weekly bets at the “Gran Caffe” coffee shop in Lynbrook, L.I.
Genovese acting capo Carmelo “Carmine” Polito was additionally charged with operating an illegal online betting operation where deadbeat gamblers faced a beatdown or worse.
“Tell him I’m going to put him under the f-----g bridge,” Polito told an associate to warn one debtor in 2019, the court papers charged.
According to authorities, Genovese defendant Joseph ”Joe Box” Rutigliano, 63, of Commack, L.I., was the only one of the suspects to avoid arrest in the Tuesday sweep and he remained on the lam.
Rutigliano was identified as the bag man for the family’s illicit earnings, collecting the money with co-defendant Salvatore ”Sal the Shoemaker” Rubino, 58, and delivering the cash to higher-ranking members.
Bonanno defendant Vito Pipitone, 40, was arrested in Wellington, Fla., while his older brother “Little Anthony” Pipitone, 49, of Deer Park, L.I., was busted locally in the operation where the cash was laundered through secret money transfers, authorities said.
Defendant Agostino Gabriele, 35, of Queens, picked up the cash for the Bonanno higher-ups, authorities charged.
Rosario, under questioning by the FBI, provided false information in denying any connection to the Bonanno family, the court papers charged.
In addition to the shared cafe operation, the two families family ran their own gambling dens, mostly in local social clubs.
Evidence assembled by prosecutors included court-ordered wiretaps, testimony from cooperating witnesses and physical evidence, authorities said.,
“This case is further proof that organized crime is alive and well,” said Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. “These violent criminal organizations operated secret underground gambling parlors in local commercial establishments ... assisted by a sworn member of law enforcement.”
Last April, a Florida-based Genovese family captain and five associates were busted on racketeering charges for running a decade-old illegal gambling operation where losing bettors faced extortion or threats of violence.
