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Gotti, 5 Others Arrested In Federal Probe Out Of Tampa

News Channel 8 photo by PETER MASA

FBI officials announce the indictment of John A. Gotti Jr. at FBI headquarters in Tampa.

By HOWARD ALTMAN | The Tampa Tribune
and ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 5, 2008

Updated: 08/05/2008 05:58 pm

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John A. Gotti Jr. (2006)

James Cadicamo

TAMPA - John A. Gotti Jr. was arrested this morning in Long Island, N.Y., on a murder conspiracy charge stemming from a federal investigation in Tampa and is headed here for arraignment.

Five other men, including one from Tampa, were simultaneously charged in a separate indictment that included allegations of witness retaliation. The indictment identifies a Hillsborough Avenue nightclub, Club Mirage, as an investment enterprise used by the Gambino crime family to conceal illegal income.

"What you have here is the Gambino crime family reaching out to Tampa, Florida," said U.S. Attorney Robert O'Neill.

"I got a call from his family this morning," said Gotti's attorney, Charles Carnesi. "John is in Manhattan being processed right now. They arrested him at his Oyster Bay home. From what I am told, there were a dozen agents and helicopters. They made a real public spectacle out of this."

At a news conference this morning at the FBI offices in Tampa, O'Neill said Gotti was one of six men who were indicted and will be tried in Tampa. Gotti's father, John Sr., the so-called "Dapper Don," was a flamboyant figure who ruled the operation from his New York social club, the Ravenite.

The arrests stem from a Tampa-based investigation into a former Gambino drug ring that operated in New York, New Jersey and Florida.

Gotti was charged in the murders of three men in New York: George Grosso, murdered Dec. 20, 1988, in Queens; Louis DiBono, murdered Oct. 4, 1990, in the World Trade Center parking garage; and Bruce John Gotterup, murdered Nov. 20, 1991, at the Boardwalk at the Rockaways in Queens.

Gotti was also charged with racketeering conspiracy for trafficking in more than five kilos of cocaine, O'Neill said. There are four counts on the second indictment.

The U.S. attorney's office in Tampa long has been looking to charge Gotti, said Jerry Capeci, an organized crime columnist for the New York Daily News and the New York Sun who has a Web site called Gang Land News.

"Florida is an open state," Capeci said. "A lot of families, including the Gambinos, have outposts in both the west and east coasts of Florida. I have written for quite awhile that Tampa was looking to bring a case against Gotti. Working with the FBI, they were successful in bringing a case against Ronnie One Arm."

The investigation involves the prosecution of Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio, who was convicted on racketeering conspiracy charges in Tampa and sentenced to life in prison, and John Alite, who is awaiting trial in Tampa after being extradited from Brazil. Alite had fled to Brazil but was prominently mentioned during Trucchio's trial. He faces murder and kidnapping charges. Another defendant, Michael Malone, pleaded guilty to armed robbery and extortion in 2006 and began cooperating with authorities before his trial. He has yet to be sentenced.

Also charged with racketeering conspiracy are James V. Cadicamo, 33, of Tampa; John A. Burke, 47, in a state prison in New York; David D'Arpino, 33, of Howard Beach, N.Y.; Michael D. Finnerty, 43, of Oceanside, N.Y.; and Guy T. Peden, 47, of Wantagh, N.Y.

Cadicamo is charged with conspiracy to kill and or beat Malone to prevent him from testifying as a witness in the Trucchio trial in fall 2006. Cadicamo is also charged with conspiring to retaliate against Malone for his cooperation in the ongoing racketeering investigations and for testifying in the trial.

A federal magistrate this afternoon ordered Cadicamo held without bail.

During Cadicamo's first appearance this afternoon, Jay Trezevant, assistant U.S. attorney, told the judge the defendant became furious when he learned Malone was cooperating with prosecutors and that he wanted him killed.

He told someone in Tampa to go to the federal courthouse during the Trucchio trial to see whether it would be possible to kill Malone there, Trezevant said.

Later, Cadicamo planned to have the same person fly to Philadelphia and drive to New York where he would beat Malone with a baseball bat and had people in New York follow Malone to learn his schedule, the prosecutor said.

Trezevant said the government has telephone and travel records as well as witnesses to back those allegations.

Cadicamo's attorney, Joseph Fritz of Tampa, said it did not make sense for someone in Tampa to plan to intimidate or kill Malone when others in New York had more access to the man.

Also, there are no allegations to the effect that Cadicamo took any action against Malone, Fritz said.

In outlining the case against Cadicamo, Trezevant said he was a member of a crime crew headed by Alite in the late 1990s that conducted at least four armed home invasions of drug dealers.

In one, he and three others including Malone posed as FBI agents at the house of a steroids dealer. The dealer and his wife were handcuffed and put on the floor while Malone stood over them with a gun.

The other three took about $20,000 in cash and $35,000 in steroids, Trezevant said.

Fritz said police reports were never filed about the home invasions and said one victim told him it never happened.

Cadicamo has a record in New York. He served a year in prison for car theft in 1996 and four years on probation.

During his arrest in Tampa today, FBI agents found a pistol that Trezevant said was prohibited for a convicted felon.

Fritz said the gun could have belonged to Cadicamo's wife and Cadicamo told agents where to find it.

After the hearing, Fritz said the federal government is trying to convict Cadicamo through association. He, Gotti and others involved in the case grew up together in Queens.

Cadicamo and Gotti once picked the lock of Gotti Sr.'s liquor cabinet, Fritz said.

"They were all friends and grew up together. He is not a member of any crime family," Fritz said.

"Jimmy does have a one-year jail sentence, but that doesn't make him someone from 'The Sopranos,' " he said.

Fritz said Cadicamo is general manager of Club Mirage. State records list him as the registered agent for U.S. Hospitality of Tampa Bay Inc., which has the same address as Club Mirage.

While arguing against bail for Cadicamo, Trezevant said Cadicamo sent Alite money after Alite fled to Cuba and later Colombia. Telephone records and wire money transfers will back this up when the case comes to trial, the prosecutor said.

Cadicamo also visited Alite in jail in Brazil and tried to provide money for Alite to bribe his way out of jail there, Trezevant said.

In denying bail, U.S. Magistrate Mark Pizzo said the charges that Cadicamo wanted to kill or intimidate Malone concerned him most.

"The integrity of our justice system requires witnesses be able to testify," Pizzo said.

Plans to kill or intimidate a witness "go to the heart of our justice system," he said.

During his Tampa trial, Trucchio, who briefly served as his own attorney, speculated that Florida federal prosecutors included him in this case because New York authorities wouldn't let them have John Gotti Jr.

The lead FBI case agent in the successful 1992 prosecution of John Gotti Sr. was asked during the Trucchio trial whether there was a crime family in the Tampa area. "Not that I'm aware of," said the agent, George Gabriel. "It's a wide open area."

During the Trucchio trial, the prosecution said Alite and Trucchio had a close relationship with the younger Gotti, referred to as "Junior."

According to the WNBC Web site, federal authorities have been investigating Gotti, 44, for years, failing to convict him three times, starting in 2005 on charges he ordered a 1992 attack against Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.

Gotti, who was arrested in front of his wife, Kim, and their six children, is "frustrated" by the investigations into him, Carnesi said.

"One of the frustrating things here is that beginning in 2004, we had three trials in the Southern District of New York, and none of them ended in convictions — all in hung juries," Carnesi said. "Now, after the third hung jury, the idea now that suddenly in Tampa, there is new information, previously unknown about this kid, who has been investigated, ad nauseam for at least the past five years or so, doesn't make any sense to me."

Reporter Neil Johnson contributed to this report. Editor Howard Altman can be reached at (813) 259-7629 or haltman@tampatrib.com. Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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