Sicilian vineyard owner arrested in anti-mafia raids

Francesco Lena detained after officials wiretapped mob bosses who described long-standing business links with him
Police have seized one of Sicily’s leading vineyards on suspicion that its award-winning wines were produced with mafia money, it was revealed today.
Magistrates ordered the arrest of Francesco Lena, the owner of the Abbazia Sant’Anastasia vineyard, near Palermo, after wiretapping mob [...]

Merlinos deny mob ties as casino commission considers casino license

ATLANTIC CITY – New Jersey gaming regulators today debated whether to approve a state license for the owners of a construction company long banned from working on casino projects because of reputed ties to organized crime.
The state Casino Control Commission is expected to vote this afternoon on the application of Bayshore Rebar Inc. and owners [...]

Toronto mob ties eyed in Montreal attacks

MONTREAL – Could a fiery turf war be erupting between the Toronto Mafia and its brethren in Montreal?
Montreal police say that’s one hypothesis they’re examining as they probe a rash of firebombings that have targeted mainly Italian establishments in their city.
Deputy police chief Jacques Robinette, head of special investigations, said Tuesday that the last arson [...]

Genovese linked extortion attempt busted

A Pequannock man who battled allegations of mob ties when he served as president of Teamsters Local 560 in the 1980s was arrested Thursday in an alleged plot to extort more than $200,000 from a Hawthorne landscaper by using the threat of Mafia muscle.
Michael C. Sciarra, 74, reportedly a onetime associate [...]

Deputy U.S. marshal gets four years in prison in mob case

A deputy U.S. marshal convicted of leaking secret information about a mob witness was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison — a punishment the judge said is designed to deter others in law enforcement from contemplating similar crimes.
The marshal, John Ambrose, sat motionless as U.S. District Court Judge John F. [...]

Witness: Construction firm had mob ties

Far from being the self-made man he says he is, Joseph N. Merlino was actually set up in the construction business by his father, a convicted Mafia killer, a retired federal corruption investigator testified Monday.
Merlino and his mother are seeking a license that would permit their company, Bayshore Rebar of Pleasantville, to [...]

Police data show Phila. mob in decline

Joseph Ligambi, reputed boss of the Philadelphia-South Jersey mob, heads a criminal organization that has nearly as many active members in jail as it does on the streets.
Decimated by a 20-year onslaught of federal prosecutions, bloody internecine power struggles, and turncoat testimony, the local branch of La Cosa Nostra – which [...]

Mob ties complicate Palm Beach County divorce

It’s not easy being in the federal witness protection program for ratting out members of the Gambino crime family – particularly when you’re going through a messy divorce.
There’s those pesky FBI agents that you have to drag around with you everywhere – even if you just want to take your kid out [...]

Mob Allegations Turn Rome’s ‘Sweet Life’ Sour

“In all Europe there is no street quite so lively, quite so cosmopolitan or quite so zany as Rome’s Via Venetos” So began a 1959 TIME story trumpeting Café de Paris as the new must-see-and-be-seen spot on the then already famous leafy boulevard. Fifty years later, the sidewalk locale is as luxurious as ever (though [...]

NBA Ref beaten by Mobster in Prison

Call it a fast break.
Imprisoned NBA referee Tim Donaghy’s knees were bashed by another prisoner who claimed to have mob ties, according to an advocacy group.
Donaghy, 41, who is set to be released from prison next Wednesday, claims he was in a garden at the Pensacola, Fla., prison camp last November [...]

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