Mob case sends pair to prison
Two more associates of Danbury trash hauler James Galante were sentenced in federal district court in New Haven ”“ one a reputed mob boss from Long Island sentenced to prison on May 9; the other Galante”™s former girlfriend he lavished with jewels and clothing, a “no-show” salary and a pampered life in a 6,000-square-foot Southbury home, who was sentenced to three months in prison May 15.
A third associate pleaded guilty to racketeering on May 11, the 19th of 29 persons charged in the June 2006 indictment to plead guilty to charges stemming from the federal government”™s undercover investigation of Galante”™s carting businesses in eastern New York and western Connecticut. Two other men not part of the indictment pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.
The reputed mob boss, Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello, 86, of Old Westbury on Long Island, was sentenced to two years in prison, fined $6,000, ordered to pay $278,000 in back federal taxes and he forfeited $130,680 seized from his home in July 2005. His prison sentence will run concurrently with an 18-month sentence handed down in New York, where he had pleaded guilty to racketeering.
Last December, Ianniello pleaded guilty in New Haven federal court to one count of conspiring to violate the federal Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and one count of conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.
Prosecutors say Ianniello is a high-ranking member of the Genovese Family of La Cosa Nostra, whose members back certain trash haulers for “tribute” payments or a “mob tax” ”“ in Galante”™s case, $30,000 a month paid to Ianniello, the government has said. The garbage haulers affiliated with organized crime carve out a “property rights” system that is enforced with threats of economic and physical reprisal. The system prevents free enterprise, forcing customers to pay inflated prices.
Ianniello”™s lawyer said he suffers from cancer and other ailments and pleaded for a light sentence, saying a longer sentence “would mean lifetime incarceration.” But Senior U.S. District Judge Ellen Bree Burns said that despite Ianniello”™s age and failing health, “age is not a license to break the law.”
A wronged woman?
Prosecutors said 46-year-old Lisa Henry, received compensation, health insurance and free use of cars from Automated Waste Disposal even though she performed no work for the Galante company from 2000 to 2004.
She was sentenced to three months in prison and three years of supervised release, and fined $20,000. Last October she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the IRS and one count of structuring financial transactions. She has since paid $56,133 in back taxes, penalties and interest.
Henry was painted as a wronged woman in a 25-page legal memo written by her lawyers before her sentencing in which they pleaded for no prison time. Galante “callously took her heart like one of his many possessions and discarded it once she was no longer useful to him,” the lawyers wrote.
But prosecutors said Henry “chose to live off the generosity of an individual reputed to be associated with organized crime.” Galante paid her more than $188,000 between 2000 and 2004 for a no-show job, prosecutors said, and let her live in a luxurious Southbury home, paid her bills, paid for her clothing and jewelry, art work and horses, and even installed a $25,000 home-entertainment center in the house.
Galante is under house arrest at the New Fairfield home he shares with his wife and two children.
Waterbury and Wolcott
Timothy Arciola, 37, of Washington, Conn., was the 19th person to cop a plea, pleading guilty May 11 to one count of conspiring to violate RICO. He works at Automated Waste Disposal Inc., one of Galante”™s carting businesses, as a sales representative.
Arciola admitted he participated in the property rights system when he and others conspired to fix accounts in the Waterbury and Wolcott areas from the fall of 2004 through the winter of 2005.
He faces a maximum prison term of 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000.