Got ya good, fellas
Colombo family's top guys nailed by feds
The Colombos just took a hit. The entire administrative structure of the famed but faded Mafia syndicate — including boss Andrew “Mush” Russo — was slapped with a federal indictment Tuesday related to the infiltration of a Queens labor union.
A total of 14 defendants — including nine reputed members of the crime clan — were charged in Brooklyn federal court with a slew of raps including labor racketeering, extortion and money laundering.
In addition to Russo, 87, the haul netted underboss Benjamin “The Claw” Castellazzo, 83, consigliere Ralph DiMatteo, 66, and captains Theodore “Teddy” Persico Jr.,
Richard Ferrara and Vincent Ricciardo.
Prosecutors said the crew used “direct threats of bodily harm to control the management of the labor union and caused it to make decisions that benefitted the Colombo crime family,” according to a release.
Through intimidation and menace, Ricciardo had been siphoning part of the salary of a senior labor official since 2001, the papers state. Ricciardo threatened to murder the unidentified victim in a recorded call earlier this year, the feds said.
“I’ll put him in the ground right in front of his wife and kids, right in front of his f-–king house. You laugh all you want, pal. I’m not afraid to go to jail,” Ricciardo allegedly hissed. “I would f–-king shoot him right in front of his wife and kids. Call the police. F-–k it. Let me go. How long you think I’m gonna last anyway?”
The gangsters also sought to force the union to do business with vendors who were associated with the crime clan through threats of violence, officials said.
“Everything we allege in this investigation proves history does indeed repeat itself,” said Acting US Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis in a statement. “The underbelly of the crime families in New York City is alive and well. These soldiers, consiglieres, underbosses and bosses are obviously not students of history and don’t seem to comprehend that we’re going to catch them.”
The feds said Colombo soldier John “Maniac” Ragano also ran a scheme to provide falsified worksafety certificates to hundreds of workers.
Ragano's bogus “schools” were actually used to store illegal fireworks, according to the feds.
Castellazzo has already done time for an extortion rap related to a fight over Brooklyn’s L&B Spumoni Gardens’ secret red sauce recipe.
He was sprung from federal lockup in 2015, prison records show.
Castellazzo’s lawyer, Jennifer Louis-Jeune, said he’d “fight the charges.” Attorneys for the other defendants either couldn’t be reached or declined to comment.