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| September 25, 2003 | |
| By Jerry Capeci | |
| Louie Crossbay In Feds' Crosshairs | |
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For starters, Manhattan federal prosecutors have notified him that they have decided to use their entire stable of Luchese turncoats in an effort to nail Daidone for two murders that took place 13 and 14 years ago and send him to prison for life, Gang Land has learned. Making matters worse, the feds in Brooklyn just hit Daidone’s prospective son-in-law with racketeering and a slew of bank burglary charges stemming from a cross-country crime binge. That, among other things, forced Louie Crossbay’s daughter to postpone wedding plans that had been set for next month. In Manhattan, the feds disclosed that they plan to call as many as six former Lucheses as prosecution witnesses – including two former acting bosses – and that they intend to use the words of a capo who died in prison four years ago to convict Daidone for a 1990 murder. The revelations so unnerved Daidone that his lawyers moved to adjourn a Sept. 29 trial date, which Judge Richard Berman put off until January. Daidone, 57, has been detained without bail since March and had been pushing for a speedy trial. His attorneys, Anthony Lombardino and Christopher Chang, have filed papers seeking to limit the number of turncoats, and their testimony. In court papers, assistant U.S. attorneys Karl Metzner and Diane Gujarati say they want to use 1994 jailhouse chatter in which capo Richard (The Toupe) |
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Facciola had tried to run out of a garage where they had cornered him but Daidone “tackled Facciola and dragged him back into the building” where Pagliarulo shot and killed him, wrote prosecutors Metzner and Gujarati. “A bird was placed in Facciola’s mouth, and his body was placed in the trunk of his car, which was then parked on a street so it would be discovered,” the prosecutors wrote. Sources said onetime Luchese soldier Frank Gioia Jr., who was incarcerated at Otisville Federal Prison with Pagliarulo in 1994, would be called to testify about the conversation. The feds are even rolling out one of the mob’s most venerable turncoats, onetime acting boss Alphonse (Little Al) D’Arco, who joined Team America back in 1991. Little Al will back up the account of Facciola’s murder provided by Pagliarulo, who died Jan 15, 1999. D’Arco will also testify that in 1991 Daidone killed two Facciola allies who were plotting to retaliate – Alfred Visconte and Lawrence Taylor. Luchese turncoats Joseph (Little Joe) Defede, Corrado (Dino) Marino, Thomas (Tommy Irish) Carew and Peter (Fat Pete) Chiodo round out the list of potential |
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Meanwhile, Daidone’s wannabe son-in-law, John Micali, (right) a Gambino associate who allegedly dealt drugs, burglarized banks and was part of a plot to kill turncoat Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano, plans his next move as a guest of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. In January 2000, according to court papers, Micali was given an electronic pager by Gambino soldier Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro, along with instructions to fly to whatever city Huck called him from. Once there, prosecutors say, Micali was to “participate in a criminal conspiracy.” The conspiracy, sources said, was a Gambino family plot to kill Gravano in Tempe, Arizona. “Micali agreed to do as instructed but was not informed of the objective of the conspiracy and he never was paged,” assistant U.S. attorney Joey Lipton wrote in a detention memo about Micali and seven other members of a violent ring – with ties to the Colombo, Bonanno and Gambino families – dubbed the “Night Drop Crew.” But if the call had come, Micali would have been up to the task, according to the resume Lipton compiled on him. A principal organizer of the Night Drop Crew, Micali, 30, flew across the country with cohorts “to rob banks and burglarize the night deposit boxes” in Florida, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Minnesota and Nevada, said Lipton. After hitting a few Las |
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Closer to home, Micali and another “principal organizer” of the Night Drop Crew, Huck’s nephew, Thomas Dono, (left) had a lucrative cocaine business and served as enforcers for a gambling operation Dono ran for his uncle at a Brooklyn social club, Lipton said. One night, wrote Lipton, after a tapped out gambler couldn’t pay, Dono and Micali “beat the individual with a hammer causing him to bleed all over the couches that were in the back room of Dono’s club.” Dono, 30, may soon be in the dock for even more serious charges. At his detention hearing Monday, Lipton told the court that the feds have evidence that he helped uncle Huck and Dono’s bank robbing buddy John Matera execute mob associate Frank Hydell – a suspected informer – outside a Staten Island strip club in 1998. Huck goes to trial in Brooklyn on Oct. 7 for plotting to kill Gravano. Carbonaro and Matera are awaiting trial in Manhattan for Hydell’s slaying, which is not expected to begin until many months after Daidone has his day in court on January 12. |
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![]() Gang Land appears each week in The New York Sun. |
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| editor@ganglandnews.com |
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| Jerry
Capeci P.O. Box 435 Radio City Station New York, NY 10101-0435 Copyright, 2003- All Rights Reserved |