Gotti kin on scrap heap
Victoria’s ex busted again
THOSE WHO can’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it — like Gambino family dumbfella Carmine Agnello.
The philandering ex-hubby of Mafia princess Victoria Gotti was busted Wednesday in Cleveland for a $3 million stolen car and scrap metal scam that recalled his crooked ways in New York.
The NYPD even stepped in and lent a hand to “Operation Goodfella,” which nailed a dozen Ohio suspects, including the former son-in-law of John Gotti.
“This operation was exactly the same one as when (Agnello) went to prison,” said Cleveland Police Deputy Chief Edward Tomba. “He was scamming the way he used to scam. He was extorting people.”
There was one new allegation from the 18-month probe: Agnello, an owner of racehorses, was accused of injecting his ponies with performance-enhancing drugs, authorities said.
Agnello, 54, in a plain white T-shirt and jeans, was cuffed at his Ohio business by detectives from Cleveland and NYPD Detective Lynn McCarthy.
“Guard dog on duty,” read a stark black and yellow sign in the background.
The probe into Agnello’s mistake by the lake began after Cleveland cops followed a trail of stolen cars to the made man’s scrapyard, Tomba said.
Agnello bought the hot cars, filled them with sand to boost the weight, and then sold the crushed vehicles by the pound to a local scrapyard — making roughly $3 million in the last year, police said.
In a series of raids, authorities seized $45,000 cash, two weapons, heavy construction equipment and an assortment of computers and video equipment.
“Organized crime respects no local boundaries, as today’s arrests indicate,” said NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton.
Agnello’s ex-wife Victoria, despite their contentious split, offered her support.
“All I will say is he’s the father of my children, and we will be here to help him if needed,” she told the Daily News. “This deeply saddens me. At the same time, I do not believe it. He was too successful to be a part of what authorities are claiming.”
The charges, as local authorities noted, were reminiscent of the Queens racketeering, arson and extortion counts that landed the balding, bulky mobster behind bars back in 2001.
Longtime Gotti family antagonist John Alite was hardly surprised by the arrest.
“He ran out of New York out of fear ’cause his father-in-law wasn’t around to hold up his bigboy pants,” said Alite, whose recent book “Gotti’s Rules” irked Agnello’s former in-laws.
“Time to stand on their own and they can’t do it,” Alite told The News. “So he goes back to stupidity and greed. That’s what brought this Gotti family down.”
Agnello was married to “Growing Up Gotti” matriarch Victoria for 17 years before their union collapsed amid his racketeering prosecution — and charges of his canoodling with the secretary at his Willets Points, Queens, auto-shredding operation. Agnello was in the middle of a nine-year racketeering, extortion and arson rap at the time of her divorce filing. He agreed to pay the federal government more than $11 million as part of his 2001 plea deal. Agnello’s former father-in-law was the infamous “Teflon Don” Gotti who died in prison after his own 1992 racketeering conviction.
Gotti earned his nickname by beating three previous prosecutions before the feds finally nailed the high-living mob boss.
Agnello, following his release from an Ohio prison, married the daughter of a fellow inmate. The couple, who met while Agnello was doing federal time, settled in the upscale Cleveland suburb of Bentleyville.