Colombo Wiseguys take ex politician LeBoutillier for $18500 in scheme to rescue American POWs
An alleged errand boy for a jailed Colombo gangster was charged Thursday with scamming an ex-congressman out of $18,500 in a phony scheme to rescue American POWs.
John LeBoutillier, a wealthy blue blood Republican who was elected to Congress in 1980, has been on a personal crusade to locate dozens of U.S. prisoners of the Vietnam War he thinks are held in Belarus.
“If I was scammed, I feel betrayed,” LeBoutillier told the Daily News.
LeBoutillier said he sought the help of reputed Colombo capo Frank (Frankie Blue Eyes) Sparaco, who is serving a 24-year sentence for murder and claimed he knew inmates with contacts in Eastern Europe.
Court papers allege that Charles (Charlieboy) Guiga acted as a go-between for Sparaco, retyping and correcting misspelled words in letters to LeBoutillier and collecting money for sham investigative services.
Guiga, 39, a deliveryman for a florist, was arrested at his Brooklyn home yesterday by FBI agents. He was charged with mail fraud and released on $300,000 bond. Sparaco has not been charged.
“The whole idea was to bring American POWs home, so if that’s not going to happen, they have been betrayed also,” LeBoutillier said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/08/2010-01-08_wiseguys_take_exli_pol_for_185g_in_pow_hunt.html#ixzz0c2qmLSTA
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Don’t know Guiga, but am positive Sparaco believed that POWs were being held and that freeing them would be enough of a mitigating circumstance to have his sentence reduced. He and LeBoutillier were both on the same page on this issue for years. The money over the course of those years seems small.