The business was one of several across the island and in Queens that served as fronts for two of New York’s oldest crime families and their illegal money-making schemes, according to two federal indictments unsealed Tuesday. When other gambling clubs threatened their property, a Nassau County detective offered to conduct police raids on rival clubs in exchange for payments, prosecutors said. On Tuesday, nine reputed members and associates of the Genovese and Bonanno clans — including the detective — were indicted in a racketeering case brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn that focused on illegal saloons and money laundering and extortion schemes. Seven of the men, who appeared in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Tuesday, pleaded not guilty to the charges. They were expected to be released on different bail packages. Federal prosecutors said that for 10 years, the gambling operations generated “significant income” for the two families as they hid under the guise of businesses such as a soccer club and a shoe repair shop. The Long Island coffee shop alone routinely earned them more than $10,000 a week, funds that trickled down to the leaders of the crime families. Breon S. Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement Tuesday that the arrests “demonstrate that the Mafia continues to infect our communities with illegal gambling, extortion and violence while exploiting our financial system in their service. criminal schemes”. He added: “Even more disturbing is the disgraceful behavior of a detective who betrayed his oath.” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said in a statement that the detective, Hector Rosario, 49, of Mineola, NY, was working a limited assignment and was not interacting with the public while the investigation was ongoing. Mr. Rosario is now suspended without pay pending his administrative hearing with the department. He worked for the Nassau County Police Department for more than 15 years, according to his LinkedIn page. “The Nassau County Police Department continues to have a zero-tolerance approach to any member of the department who engages in criminal activity,” said Commissioner Ryder. The power of the city’s five legendary Mafia clans began to decline in the 1980s and 1990s as aggressive prosecutions disrupted their leadership and authorities targeted their control over the syndicates. The Bonanno family in particular saw a series of damaging convictions and acquittals during the 2000s. Even the family’s longtime boss began cooperating with authorities after a 2004 conviction for a series of murders. Families still exist, but with much less widespread control. In recent years, they have faced charges of similar kinds of organized crime — extortion, illegal gambling, fraud — in smaller cases with few defendants, as well as large-scale conspiracy cases. In 2016, for example, 46 members of a criminal ring that included four of the city’s Mafia families—including the Genoveses and Bonannos—were indicted in an racketeering scheme that stretched from Massachusetts to South Florida and involved extortion, health care fraud and arson. In the Brooklyn case, the Genovese and Bonanno crime families began operating the Long Island coffee shop — Gran Caffe in the Lynbrook neighborhood — around May 2012, according to the indictments. Members of the two factions agreed to a profit-sharing arrangement for the gambling establishment, and each helped keep it running: High-ranking members of both families “relied on their subordinates” to collect the profits and distribute money at “cult meetings” , according to prosecutors. he said. The pattern was similar at the other businesses, which included Sal’s Shoe Repair in Merrick, New York, and La Nazionale Soccer Club in the Glendale section of Queens. Prosecutors said evidence in the case includes wiretapped phone calls, accounts from multiple witnesses and a wealth of other evidence. In a memo to the judge, prosecutors argued that “the seriousness of the risk involved in releasing the defendants should not be underestimated” and that the men posed a significant flight risk. Eight of the accused were recently arrested in New York and Florida, while the whereabouts of one remained unknown. U.S. Magistrate Judge James R. Cho approved bail packages for the seven who appeared in Brooklyn court, which included bonds of $150,000 to $2 million, travel restrictions and other controls. Mr. Rosario, the Nassau County police detective, was to be released on $500,000 secured bail. The indictment did not specify how much money he had received for organizing police raids on rival gambling sites. But prosecutors said that in a 2020 interview with FBI special agents, he lied about his knowledge of the business. His attorney, Lou Freeman, and the Nassau County Police Benevolent Association, the county’s largest police union, did not immediately return a request for comment. One of the defendants, Carmelo Polito, 63, of Whitestone, Queens, was also charged with operating an illegal online gambling site. Prosecutors said Mr. Polito — who is suspected of being a captain in the Genovese family — threatened and extorted money from a man who had lost several thousand dollars in bets, saying he would “break” the man’s “face” in a call October 2019. . Mr. Polito later asked that a message be sent to the patron, warning that he would “put him under” a bridge, to use a verbal expression. Prosecutors portrayed Mr. Polito as a menacing captain in the family who was convicted of murder 19 years ago and could not escape his violent life afterward. But Gerald McMahon, Mr. Polito’s lawyer, told the court that the portrayal was wrong, pointing out that the conviction was later overturned and that Mr. Polito was at work when the authorities arrived at his home to arrest him — and that returned to be taken into custody. “The story they gave you, it’s just a complete sham,” Mr McMahon told the judge. “The case is a gambling case. It’s a gamble.” The case was prompted by a multi-year joint investigation by several agencies, including federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, the FBI and the Nassau County District Attorney’s office.
