Rick Halprin, a mob lawyer who represented several Outfit members including Joey "The Clown" Lombardo at the 2007 so-called Family Secrets trial, died on Tuesday of
a self-inflicted gunshot at his condominium in Hyde Park as reported by Rosemary Regina Sobol for the Chicago Tribune. The 73-year-old was in financial ruin -- his body was discovered when authorities were serving an eviction notice -- and he endured constant pain from a Viet Nam war injury.
The man who was behind a shocking murder-suicide last year at a business meeting in a Queens hotel received $300,000 from a shell company in Cyprus which is at the center of a gambling and money laundering ring with ties to the Russian Mafia according to federal prosecutors as reported by Robert Gearty for the Daily News.
In May 2012 Gary L. Zalevsky shot Brian J. Weiss, and then turned the gun on himself at the Hilton Garden Inn near Kennedy Airport.
Federal prosecutors claim that one of the men who attended the business meeting and witnessed the murder-suicide is an unindicted co-conspirator of Anatoly Golubchik who was charged last month for his alleged role in a mob-tied poker ring for New York's rich and famous which laundered tens of millions of dollars through the Cyprus shell company.
The revelations were disclosed at a court hearing during which the feds unsuccessfully attempted to deny bail for Golubchik.
A twisted dirtbag who faced 10 years in prison for meth trafficking strapped on some bombs and blew himself up outside the Pennsylvania home of the man he believed was responsible for his arrest as reported by the Daily Mail. The vengeful tweaker died without getting any satisfaction as the purported snitch survived the attack although his home was levelled.
Three defendants -- Thomas Uva IV, John Colello and John Liquori -- pled guilty yesterday in a Hartford federal court for their roles in Fairfield County gambling rackets which the feds allege were controlled by the Gambino crime family as reported by Michael P. Mayko for the Connecticut Post.
The trio were among those arrested last June for their various alleged roles in taking sports bets through
offshore websites and running card clubs in Stamford and Hamden, and a dozen others -- including Dean DePreta and Richard Uva -- are slated for trial next month.
The feds busted the suspected operation with the cooperation of Gambino soldier Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli who spent two years secretly recording his fellow reputed mobsters up and down the East Coast until committing suicide a year ago. Apparently the FBI has surveillance photos of Stefanelli with DePreta whom prosecutors allege runs the Gambino family's gambling operations in Fairfield County.
Apparently Joe Ligambi, the reputed boss of the Philly mob who will stand trial on racketeering charges this October, is quite the Chatty Cathy as reported by George Anastasia for The Inquirer: "secretly recorded conversations from a mob meeting at a New Jersey restaurant two years ago offer a rare opportunity to listen in as Ligambi breaks bread in a gossip-filled gabfest with several other mobsters."
The conversations were taped by Gambino soldier and government informant Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli, and "it's Ligambi, in his own words, discussing the murderous and the mundane as the wine flowed during a five-hour luncheon meeting at La Griglia, a restaurant in Kenilworth."
A federal judge ruled that he will allow the tapes into evidence at trial but Nicky Skins won't be around to enjoy the show. Last year the 69-year-old Stefanelli took his own life in a hotel room with a drug overdose two days after whacking video poker machine vendor Joseph Rossi. Apparently, the bloody drama played out after Stefanelli developed remorse over wearing a wire for the
feds against his paisanos, and he blamed Rossi who previously snitched
for his predicament.
An Italian appellate court has affirmed the removal of three children from a family with reputed ties to the Bellocco clan from the 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia after their mother allegedly was pressured by relatives into committing suicide for becoming an informant as reported by Michael Day for The Independent: "the appeal judges spoke of the 'urgent need to remove the three children from the family setting permeated by underworld values, tribal loyalties and a distorted sense of honour and respect."
