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Meet the Oldfathers: How 30 years after Goodfellas heist, veteran Mafia men

By ROB CRILLY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Meet the Oldfathers: How 30 years after Goodfellas heist, veteran Mafia men struggled to use modern cell phones and got bartered down to $3,000 in a shakedown

 

  • Testimony in trial of Vincent Asaro, 80, who is accused of receiving money from notorious heist, revealed reality of modern Mafia life
  • His cousin Gaspare ‘Handsome’ Valenti, 68, who is a turncoat, revealed how Asaro hated ‘tiny keys’ of his mobile phone
  • Valenti told of meeting in Starbucks where he couldn’t drink the coffee because it would make him ‘wired’ 
  • They demanded payment of $5,000 debt from family member but he talked it down to $3,000 
  • Prosecution say Asaro was ‘made member of Bonnano family’ and involved in raid at New York‘s JFK airport which inspired Goodfellas

Three decades after allegedly pulling off one of the cash biggest robberies in American history, the men accused of stealing more than $6m in the Lufthansa heist were reduced to shaking down relatives for a few thousand dollars, according to secret recordings.

Vincent Asaro, 80, denies multiples charges of extortion, murder and violence that prosecutors believe spanned four decades as a key figure in Bonanno crime family.

The case against him is built on recordings made by his alleged associate Gaspare ‘Handsome’ Valenti, who wore an FBI wire for five years.

While the early evidence was a reminder of the power once wielded by New York’s five crime families, the later recordings show how the world of the mafia hood has changed.

Aging associates struggle to deal with mobile phones and meetings are held at Starbucks, rather than the social clubs favored during the 1970s and 1980s – and one could not even drink the coffee, saying it would leave him ‘wired’.

On the second day of the trial in Brooklyn, Valenti, 68, testified in minute detail how he had taken part in the Lufthansa raid – a robbery later dramatised in the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas – with Asaro.

But on Wednesday, he described a modest endeavor 32 years later: helping Asaro obtain money from a cousin, Carmine ‘Skippy’ Muscarello, who had inherited a house.

The episode began with Valenti, now 68, telephoning Asaro on his mobile phone in October 2010, to discover he was shopping in a local market for the ingredients for soup.

Ansaro answered: ‘I’m in Waldbaum’s. I’m shopping, I’m going to make lentil soup. I just bought lentils and some orzo and s***.’

They discussed the deal in a series of phonecalls, some apparently ending abruptly with dropped signals. Asaro said Skippy had promised him an ‘end’ – or a share – amounting to $5000 when he sold the house in Brooklyn.

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Valenti agreed to visit Asaro at his office in Long Island City where he was a manager for an electrical contractor. Perhaps he would wear a suit, he said.

‘Just be a gentleman,’ he added, ‘but do you want me to… you don’t want to get… uh?

‘No, no, no,’ answered Ansaro. ‘But let him understand that we want our money. I mean it Gar, I mean really he promised it to us. If you have to, then do it, that’s all.’

Valenti wore a wire to the meeting.

After waiting as Skippy orders parts on the telephone, he said: ‘Vinny wants this money. He felt he had the money coming to him.

‘Look, we did a lot of things for you… your brother, when Johnny was in trouble… ‘That’s not my debt,’ said Skippy. ‘That’s the only one that…

‘May your brother rest… ‘That’s my brother’s debt.’ ‘Wait. May your brother rest in peace…’

Valenti persuaded Skippy to speak with Asaro on his new mobile phone, but struggles to get through.

‘They made these numbers any smaller… it’s for Braille,’ Asaro can be heard saying.

Later he added: ‘I just got this phone the other day. It’s driving me crazy.’

drawmafia

Eventually Skippy spoke to Asaro and then said he was ready to write a check for $3000.

‘I’m gonna settle up with him but I don’t wanna here from you ever again, you understand? All right? All right?

They arranged to meet the following day, at a Starbucks on Cross Bay Boulevard, Queens.

‘You ever have any problems, you know exactly what you gotta do. You call me, Vinny or Jerry, and they’ll be there for you.’

They meet the next day at Starbucks, where Skippy produced the check.

Valenti has to apologise for leaving his coffee, which he explained would make him ‘wired’.

For Full Article – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3283389/Meet-Oldfathers-30-years-Goodfellas-heist-Mafia-men-struggled-use-modern-cell-phones-moaned-Starbucks-coffee-got-bartered-3-000-shakedown.html

 

Assange Lawyer: UK and Sweden ‘Violating International Law’

U.K. authorities say they will arrest the Australian national if he leaves the embassy to seek medical treatment.

The United Kingdom and Sweden are “clearly violating international law” for refusing to grant Julian Assange medical attention outside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London without arrest, a lawyer for the WikiLeaks founder told RT Thursday.

Assange, who has been living in asylum in the embassy for over three years, has been suffering from a “deep pain” in his right shoulder since June, for which his doctor has advised a magnetic resonance imaging scan.

U.K. authorities have said that they will arrest the Australian national if he leaves the embassy to seek medical treatment, which Assange’s legal team says is an affront on his human rights.

RELATED: The Revolutionary Act of Telling the Truth

“The U.K. and Sweden are clearly violating international law,” lawyer Carey Shenkman told RT in a televised interview. “The U.K. is effectively brushing off its international obligations.”

According to Shenkman, both the U.K. and Sweden are contravening legally binding accords, including the Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which grant the right to medical treatment, while both nations recognize asylum in embassies.

“What they are doing in reality is making Assange choose between his asylum and getting medical treatment. No person should ever have to make that choice,” Shenkman added.

Assange is wanted for questioning by Sweden over sexual assault. If arrested he faces the risk of extradition to the U.S. where there has been an ongoing attempt to prosecute Wikileaks and its founder over the slew of damning revelations made about the U.S. military.

For Full Article and Video – This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Assange-Lawyer-UK-and-Sweden-Violating-International-Law–20151016-0002.html

DEA Must Stop Interfering With Legal Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, Federal Court Rules

The judge said the DEA was defying the “language and logic” of the law

In a victory for state medical marijuana programs and patients, a federal court in California ruled Monday that federal authorities may not shut down medical pot dispensaries operating within state laws.

Under Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which accompanied last year’s spending bill, the Justice Department can not use federal dollars to interfere with state medical marijuana laws and practices, preventing the DEA from pursuing dispensaries and patients, the court ruled, according to the Washington Post.

The decision follows a leaked Justice Department memo that interpreted the amendment as offering protections limited to the actual states, not the individuals and businesses which deal with the day-to-day implementation of marijuana laws. As a result of the DEA’s continued enforcement, several dispensaries have been closed in California, including one owned by the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the first licensed medical pot dispensary in the state.

Read Full Article – http://time.com/4080110/dea-medical-marijuana-california-ruling/

‘Goodfellas’ heist case could be last old-school Mafia trial

 

Accused “Goodfellas” mobster Vincent Asaro personally handed off a case stuffed with jewelry from the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist to future Bonanno boss Joey Massino, a witness testified Monday as the first ever trial in the long unsolved crime got underway in Brooklyn federal court.

Veteran mafia snitch Salvatore “Good Lookin’ Sal” Vitale took riveted jurors inside the more than $6 million heist that gained legendary status after its depiction in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 film.

“When Joe got in the car he had the case that Vinny gave him,” Vitale testified. “He had it in his lap…He opened up the case and he showed me all kinds of chains and he said ‘this is from the Lufthansa score.’”

Later that day, Vitale went to Massino’s Queens house and was shown a portion of the breathtaking haul.

“All of the jewelry was laid out on the dining room table,” Vitale said, griping that Massino tossed him just one measly necklace as a gift. “He was always a big spender,” Vitale quipped.
Eager to convert the glittering booty into cash, Vitale said he and Massino took a ride to Manhattan shortly after the big JFK score.

“A couple of days later I drove Joey to the diamond district on Canal Street and after I parked we entered into a jewelry store,” Vitale said. “There was a guy there — him and Joe went in the back with the case and I never saw the case again.”

Full article – http://nypost.com/2015/10/19/goodfellas-heist-case-could-be-last-old-school-mafia-trial/

El Chapo Injured While Narrowly Escaping Capture in Mexico

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It sounds like Mexican authorities are getting closer to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the convicted cartel kingpin who disappeared through a hole in the shower floor of his maximum security prison cell in July.

Mexican officials told reporters this week that the fugitive drug lord injured his face and leg while narrowly escaping from security forces that had closed in on Guzman’s mountain hideout in northwest Mexico. Guzman reportedly fled the hideout shortly before soldiers arrived.

Those Mexican officials haven’t revealed how long the soldiers missed Guzman by, how bad his injuries really are, or even how they know he’s injured, probably because they don’t want to reveal how they were able to find him. The New York Times said the hideout was in a place called the Golden Triangle, “a rugged area at the border of Mr. Guzmán’s home state, Sinaloa…”

Of course, who really knows what to believe after this leaked audio from El Chapo’s prison cell showed that it was painfully obvious something was going on from all the drilling sounds the night he escaped, yet guards acted pretty surprised when they checked out his cell later. for full article http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/10/el-chapo-injures-face-escapes-capture