http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-749003,00.html
'She grabbed gambling records and ran to the bathroom in an apparant attempt to flush them away'
Granny, 93, helped Mafia betting ring
From James Bone in New York
POLICE raiding a New York flat were stunned to find a 93-year-old “gambling granny” at the heart of an illegal betting ring run by the Bonanno crime family.
Prosecutors say that Rosa Baccalore received $500 (£315) a month in rent for allowing her home in the Bronx to be used as a “wire room” to take illegal bets, particularly on American football. The bets were then placed in Costa Rica.
When police executed a search warrant at the premises on Monday night, Mrs Baccalore grabbed gambling records and ran to the bathroom in an apparent attempt to flush them away.
Eight men were arrested and charged with promoting gambling, an offence punishable by up to four years in jail.
Mrs Baccalore was questioned, but not charged. Police said that the gambling ring had been running for 20 years and raked in $20 million a year.
The case was the second involving the use of elderly women to be brought against Anthony Frascone, described by authorities as a “soldier” in the Bonanno family.
Last autumn police allegedly found gambling records at the home of his mother, Margaret, 83, in the Bronx.
All eight men arrested during a series of raids on Monday were identified as soldiers or associates of the Bonanno clan, one of New York’s five traditional Mafia families.
The clan has been “decapitated” by recent charges against its reputed boss, Joseph Massino, who was, till then, the last alleged Mafia chieftain to remain at large.
Mr Massino faces murder charges stemming from the celebrated infiltration of the crime family in the 1970s by an undercover FBI agent who called himself Donnie Brasco, a case turned into a hit Hollywood movie starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino.
The alleged Mafia boss is charged with ordering the killings of Anthony Mirra, a mobster who unwittingly introduced the undercover agent into the family, and Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano, who headed the Mafia “crew” that the agent joined.
Mr Massino’s lawyer has appealed to authorities to free his client on bail to help to keep New York “safe”.
At a recent hearing, David Breitbart, the lawyer, claimed that the Bonannos had committed no violence during his client’s decade-long reign and told the judge: “It would make the street a lot safer if he was out.”
[This message was edited by The General on July 18, 2003 at 12:03 PM.]
'She grabbed gambling records and ran to the bathroom in an apparant attempt to flush them away'
Granny, 93, helped Mafia betting ring
From James Bone in New York
POLICE raiding a New York flat were stunned to find a 93-year-old “gambling granny” at the heart of an illegal betting ring run by the Bonanno crime family.
Prosecutors say that Rosa Baccalore received $500 (£315) a month in rent for allowing her home in the Bronx to be used as a “wire room” to take illegal bets, particularly on American football. The bets were then placed in Costa Rica.
When police executed a search warrant at the premises on Monday night, Mrs Baccalore grabbed gambling records and ran to the bathroom in an apparent attempt to flush them away.
Eight men were arrested and charged with promoting gambling, an offence punishable by up to four years in jail.
Mrs Baccalore was questioned, but not charged. Police said that the gambling ring had been running for 20 years and raked in $20 million a year.
The case was the second involving the use of elderly women to be brought against Anthony Frascone, described by authorities as a “soldier” in the Bonanno family.
Last autumn police allegedly found gambling records at the home of his mother, Margaret, 83, in the Bronx.
All eight men arrested during a series of raids on Monday were identified as soldiers or associates of the Bonanno clan, one of New York’s five traditional Mafia families.
The clan has been “decapitated” by recent charges against its reputed boss, Joseph Massino, who was, till then, the last alleged Mafia chieftain to remain at large.
Mr Massino faces murder charges stemming from the celebrated infiltration of the crime family in the 1970s by an undercover FBI agent who called himself Donnie Brasco, a case turned into a hit Hollywood movie starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino.
The alleged Mafia boss is charged with ordering the killings of Anthony Mirra, a mobster who unwittingly introduced the undercover agent into the family, and Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano, who headed the Mafia “crew” that the agent joined.
Mr Massino’s lawyer has appealed to authorities to free his client on bail to help to keep New York “safe”.
At a recent hearing, David Breitbart, the lawyer, claimed that the Bonannos had committed no violence during his client’s decade-long reign and told the judge: “It would make the street a lot safer if he was out.”
[This message was edited by The General on July 18, 2003 at 12:03 PM.]
