Queens newspaper publisher may do 20 years in prison

From the Daily News:

A Queens newspaper publisher found herself on the wrong side of a headline after authorities said she was messing with the mob.

Patricia Adams, publisher of The Forum, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of witness tampering in a bizarre offshoot of a loansharking case involving the Bonanno crime family, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors.

Instead of simply signing off on a story about the scheme, Adams became a key player, using her weekly newspaper to bully a woman out of testifying against a Bonanno associate accused of sexually harassing the woman at his Broad Channel deli.

The harassment accusation against Robert Pisani threatened the freedom he enjoyed after posting $500,000 bail in a $26 million loansharking scheme in and around Howard Beach, officials said.

Adams allegedly stepped in, and tried to make the woman’s father talk his daughter out of cooperating with federal law enforcement.

Days ahead of Pisani’s bail revocation hearing, the local newswoman played hardball with the victim’s dad and said she’d dirty up the daughter in her paper, prosecutors said.

Judge Brian Cogan agreed to release Adams late Wednesday on $150,000 bond. Adams also had to put up her house as collateral.

She’ll be under house arrest, so if she wants to go out and interview people for the paper, she’ll have to get the green light from pretrial services, Cogan said.

Adams is looking at up to 20 years if convicted.

Big mob bust (with Viagra!)

From the NY Post:

Manhattan prosecutors today announced a big blow against the Bonanno crime family: the indictment on enterprise corruption charges of seven crew members, including jailed Donnie Brasco-era gangster and alleged underboss Nicholas "Nicky" Santora.

Two leaders of Teamsters Local 917, which handles liquor store and parking lot employees, were additionally indicted for allegedly helping the Bonannos gain loansharking and book-making footholds among members.

They are the local's president, Nicholas Bernhard, and shop steward Scott O'Neill, of Howard Beach.

Investigators had pulled an illegal, loaded gun from under the pillow of Bernhard's Congers, NY, bed when search warrants were executed on the suspects in February, a source told The Post.

Additional illegal firearms had been seized at that time from Bernhard's home and from that of alleged soldier Anthony "Skinny" Santoro, including a Tech-9 pulled from a stash of guns in Santoro's Staten Island house.

"Many mistakenly believe that the mob has disappeared entirely except when you watch HBO," Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., told reporters.

"Whatever name it's called, the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, the Mob, this indictment demonstrates that organized crime is still operating in New York City and still has its hooks in the labor movement," Vance said in announcing the fruits of a two-year joint investigation by his office and the NYPD Organized Crime Control Bureau and Organized Crime Investigation Unit.

The top enterprise corruption charge against the nine men includes pattern acts involving the traditional mob mainstays: loansharking, offshore gambling, extortion, union corruption and weapons possession.

But in a nod to more modern tastes, the gangsters allegedly also dabbled in the distribution of Viagra, Cialis and the suburban party drug Oxycodone.

The Sunset Diner in Greenpoint and the Jackson Hole Diner in Queens were favorite meeting spots, a source said.

Major loansharking bust nets 37

From WCBS880:

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly announced a major takedown of organized crime activity today.

The long-term investigation focused on gambling and loan sharking rings — the real moneymakers for the Gambino crime family.

Kelly said that the 37 defendants were rounded up in a series of early morning raids.

Investigators had used wiretaps, video surveillance, GPS tracking, and bugs placed inside various locations to make their cases.

When the defendants conducted business on street corners, undercover cops were watching.

According to the charges, some of the gambling operations on professional sports and horse racing were run out of offshore wire rooms that generated millions of dollars in wagers.

The investigation was called “Operation Flat Rate.”

4 boroughs and NJ are represented!