‘Family’ newspaper
Publisher busted on witness tamper rap in mob case
A QUEENS newspaper publisher found herself on the wrong side of a headline after authorities said she was messing with the mob.
Patricia Adams, publisher of The Forum, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of witness tampering in a bizarre offshoot of a loansharking case involving the Bonanno crime family, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors.
Instead of simply signing off on a story about the scheme, Adams became a key player, using her weekly newspaper to bully a woman out of testifying against a Bonanno associate accused of sexually harassing the woman at his Broad Channel deli.
The harassment accusation against Robert Pisani threatened the freedom he enjoyed after posting $500,000 bail in a $26 million loansharking scheme in and around Howard Beach, officials said. Adams allegedly stepped in, and tried to make the woman’s father talk his daughter out of cooperating with federal law enforcement. Days ahead of Pisani’s bail revocation hearing, the local newswoman played hardball with the victim’s dad and said she’d dirty up the daughter in her paper, prosecutors said.
The woman “is going to hurt herself. That’s the truth. I’m going to hurt her,” Adams, 58, told the father in a recorded May conversation. “You know, I gotta put out what I have to put out.”
At another point in the conversation, Adams told the dad, “I won’t hurt you, if you don’t deserve (it) — that’s for my enemies. I will not hurt you ... but in the newspaper, thoroughly, thoroughly objective... For my good, for everybody’s good — I’m hoping that she’ll decide to drop it.”
Prosecutors said Adams owed gambling debts to people linked with the Bonannos. The publisher also played cards at an Ozone Park social club controlled by the crime family, according to a cooperator.
Adams, 58, was recorded saying, “I’m kind of under their ... thumb.” Adams was likely talking about her obligations to the crime family because of “her gambling and business relationships,” court papers said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsay Gerdes said Adams was “using a newspaper she’s connected to as a sword to convince someone not to testify in the case.” Authorities claim Adams is associated with Pisani and other reputed gangsters, like Ronald (Ronnie G) Giallanzo, an acting capo who allegedly led the extortionate loan operation.
But Adams’ lawyer, Kenneth Paul, said his client — who ran the paper out of her Howard Beach basement — was an “upstanding citizen in the community” and the prosecution charges were nothing but accusations. Judge Brian Cogan agreed to release Adams late Wednesday on $150,000 bond. Adams also had to put up her house as collateral.
She’ll be under house arrest, so if she wants to go out and interview people for the paper, she’ll have to get the green light from pretrial services, Cogan said.
Adams is looking at up to 20 years if convicted.