Seven Westchester County residents were among 32 persons indicted Jan. 16 on federal charges for their alleged roles in organized crime”™s continued control of the commercial waste-hauling industry in the New York metropolitan area.
Westchester County Police worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US. Attorney”™s Office for the Southern District of New York on the four-year investigation that led to the indictment of 12 men under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise that asserted illegal and extortionate control over commercial waste-hauling companies in New York and New Jersey.
Other defendants were charged with individual criminal acts that included loan-sharking, mail and wire fraud conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said 12 defendants facing racketeering charges are members and associates of three organized crime families of La Cosa Nostra ”“ the Genovese, Gambino and Luchese families.
Those indicted include: Joseph Sarcinella, 78, Scarsdale, charged with RICO conspiracy; Pasquale Carbone Sr., 70, White Plains, mail and wire fraud conspiracy; Robert Franco, 50, Hartsdale, interstate transportation of stolen property; Mario Velez, 44, Peekskill, extortion conspiracy; Pasquale P. Cartalemi Jr., 50, Cortlandt Manor, extortion conspiracy and extortion; Pasquale L. Cartalemi, 27, Cortlandt Manor, extortion conspiracy and extortion; and Andrew McGuire, 29, Hawthorne, charged with extortion conspiracy.
The accused Westchester residents face possible prison terms ranging from five to 40 years.
Federal officers described Sarcinella as a soldier in the Genovese crime family who headed a family faction that at times controlled a waste hauling company incorporated by a cooperating witness in the multiyear investigation.
Bharara, when announcing the indictments unsealed Wednesday in Manhattan, said the organized crime families exerted control of the waste disposal industry “throughout a vast swath of counties in New York and New Jersey, and the tactics they used to exert and maintain their control come right out of the Mafia playbook ”“ extortion, intimidation, and threats of violence. ”¦Â Organized crime has many victims ”“ in this case, small business owners who pay for waste removal, potential competitors and the communities infected by this corruption and its cost.”
Westchester County Public Safety Commissioner George N. Longworth said the long-term partnership between the county police department and federal law enforcement “is an important means of combating organized crime and ensuring that businesses in Westchester are free to operate without fear of extortion or undue influence.”
