The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino Read Online Free Page B
Author: Matt Birkbeck
cold, but they had no idea just how frosty it had become. In retrospect, although they thought they were doing their jobs in ferreting out Friel, they derailed Rendell’s first nomination, which was a mistake the governor wouldn’t make twice. By giving background investigations to BIE, the gaming board would effectively control the investigative process, especially for favored casino applicants. But BIE was a civilian agency, and even though it would be stocked with former law enforcement personnel, they would not be privy to the kind of deep, classified criminal information available only to law enforcement agencies, such as the state police or FBI.
That meant anyone applying for a gaming license in Pennsylvania would not be fully vetted.
It was a disaster in the making, and none of this made any sense to Periandi. And as he pondered the administration’s actions, another unsettling issue was developing, and this one had to do with Louis DeNaples.
T WO
O nce a jewel that for decades drew vacationers from the New York metropolitan area eager to lap up the country air, good food and celebrity entertainment, Mount Airy Lodge had, by the 1990s, lost its luster. Plagued by financial difficulties, the resort closed in 2001 after its owner committed suicide, and it was taken over by a private-equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, which later sold it to Louis DeNaples, in 2004.
Periandi first heard about DeNaples in the early 1980s, when his name surfaced in several Pennsylvania Crime Commission reports. DeNaples, according to the reports, had close associations with the Bufalino crime family, which in its heyday was only fifty members strong yet controlled all organized crime activity in northeast Pennsylvania and parts of southern New York State. Among its favored businesses were loan sharking, extortion, money laundering, labor racketeering and prostitution.
According to the crime commission reports, DeNaples’ relationship with the Bufalinos was publicly unveiled after he pleaded no contest in 1978 for defrauding the U.S. government for taking part in a scheme that fraudulently billed more than $500,000 for supposed cleanup work from Hurricane Agnes, which devastated the region in 1972. DeNaples was charged with several other men, including Scranton city officials, but the trial ended in a hung jury, with one lone holdout forcing an acquittal. Prior to a second trial, DeNaples pleaded no contest to a single fraud charge. He paid a $10,000 fine and was placed on probation but escaped a prison sentence.
But in 1980, the FBI was tipped off that the first DeNaples’ trial had been fixed by several members of the Bufalino family, among them James Osticco, the underboss and a hard-core gangster whose relationship with the family namesake, Russell Bufalino, went back to the 1950s. Both men had been arrested at the famed mob gathering in Apalachin, New York, in November 1957, which for the first time brought organized crime out into the national public eye.
In 1983, Osticco and several others were tried and convicted for bribing the juror and her husband. The price was cheap: $1,000, a set of car tires and a pocket watch.
The DeNaples case was subsequently referenced in several Pennsylvania Crime Commission reports, as were his alleged ties to Osticco and several other organized crime figures, among them William D’Elia, who had taken over leadership of the Bufalino family in the mid-1990s.
The DeNaples story was the legendary rags to riches. His father, Patrick, was a railroad worker, and DeNaples grew up piss poor, sharing shoes and other clothing with his siblings. As a young man, he sold Christmas trees on a corner lot, using his profits to buy a single junked auto. Some forty years later, DeNaples led a billion-dollar legacy that included ownership of two of the largest garbage landfills in Pennsylvania and several auto junkyards and appointments to some of the region’s most prestigious boards, including the
That meant anyone applying for a gaming license in Pennsylvania would not be fully vetted.
It was a disaster in the making, and none of this made any sense to Periandi. And as he pondered the administration’s actions, another unsettling issue was developing, and this one had to do with Louis DeNaples.
T WO
O nce a jewel that for decades drew vacationers from the New York metropolitan area eager to lap up the country air, good food and celebrity entertainment, Mount Airy Lodge had, by the 1990s, lost its luster. Plagued by financial difficulties, the resort closed in 2001 after its owner committed suicide, and it was taken over by a private-equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, which later sold it to Louis DeNaples, in 2004.
Periandi first heard about DeNaples in the early 1980s, when his name surfaced in several Pennsylvania Crime Commission reports. DeNaples, according to the reports, had close associations with the Bufalino crime family, which in its heyday was only fifty members strong yet controlled all organized crime activity in northeast Pennsylvania and parts of southern New York State. Among its favored businesses were loan sharking, extortion, money laundering, labor racketeering and prostitution.
According to the crime commission reports, DeNaples’ relationship with the Bufalinos was publicly unveiled after he pleaded no contest in 1978 for defrauding the U.S. government for taking part in a scheme that fraudulently billed more than $500,000 for supposed cleanup work from Hurricane Agnes, which devastated the region in 1972. DeNaples was charged with several other men, including Scranton city officials, but the trial ended in a hung jury, with one lone holdout forcing an acquittal. Prior to a second trial, DeNaples pleaded no contest to a single fraud charge. He paid a $10,000 fine and was placed on probation but escaped a prison sentence.
But in 1980, the FBI was tipped off that the first DeNaples’ trial had been fixed by several members of the Bufalino family, among them James Osticco, the underboss and a hard-core gangster whose relationship with the family namesake, Russell Bufalino, went back to the 1950s. Both men had been arrested at the famed mob gathering in Apalachin, New York, in November 1957, which for the first time brought organized crime out into the national public eye.
In 1983, Osticco and several others were tried and convicted for bribing the juror and her husband. The price was cheap: $1,000, a set of car tires and a pocket watch.
The DeNaples case was subsequently referenced in several Pennsylvania Crime Commission reports, as were his alleged ties to Osticco and several other organized crime figures, among them William D’Elia, who had taken over leadership of the Bufalino family in the mid-1990s.
The DeNaples story was the legendary rags to riches. His father, Patrick, was a railroad worker, and DeNaples grew up piss poor, sharing shoes and other clothing with his siblings. As a young man, he sold Christmas trees on a corner lot, using his profits to buy a single junked auto. Some forty years later, DeNaples led a billion-dollar legacy that included ownership of two of the largest garbage landfills in Pennsylvania and several auto junkyards and appointments to some of the region’s most prestigious boards, including the
Readers choose
Claire Chilton
Carlos Fuentes
Matt Cronan
Connie Shelton
Shiloh Walker
Jasper Fforde
Ra'Chael Ohara
Joshua P. Simon
Carol Lynne