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Have people seen this article in the Daily News today???

Hall caters to mob? It's news to pols

By GREG B. SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

When Mayor Bloomberg stopped by Russo's on the Bay this month, he had no idea the Gambino crime family allegedly gets $1 per head for every visitor to the Queens catering hall.
Nor did City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who was there in October, or Bloomberg's Republican rival, Thomas Ognibene, who dropped by last week for a Sergeants Benevolent Association breakfast.

None of the politicians or cops who go to Russo's seem to be aware that for the past year, the marble palace in Howard Beach has been repeatedly and publicly linked to the crime family that spawned John Gotti.

Just six weeks ago, top Mafia informant Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo said in open court the Gambino family gets $1 for every person who shows up at Frank Russo's Howard Beach culinary mecca.

'They take a dollar a head,' DiLeonardo said during the trial of mob boss Peter Gotti. 'For everyone attending a wedding, [Russo's] would kick back a dollar a head to the guys.'

The 'guys' DiLeonardo referred to are surviving members of the late mob boss John Gotti's family, including his brothers Gene and Peter, and his son, John A. (Junior) Gotti, law enforcement sources say.

And DiLeonardo made clear the dollar-a-head kickback scheme applied not just to weddings, but to all functions at Russo's. DiLeonardo also testified 'about 70% of the catering halls [are] ... with organized crime families, in the boroughs, in Manhattan.'

In November, mob turncoat Anthony Rotondo testified at the Peter Gotti trial that Russo's 'kicked up money to the Gambinos.' The Daily News and other media reported that testimony.

As far back as 2002, the FBI alleged in Brooklyn Federal Court that Russo's owner, Frank Russo, was a Gambino associate who visited gangster Gene Gotti in prison.

In the months since, numerous law enforcement groups have held functions there, including the New York State Fraternal Order of Police and the New York Policewomen's Endowment Association.

Russo's, where the waiters switch jackets before the main course, has been a mainstay of the rubber-chicken circuit for politicians for years.

A spokesman for Bloomberg, who stopped by a dinner dance at Russo's this month, said the mayor was unaware of the court testimony about mob ties.

Paul Browne, a spokesman for the police, noted the restaurant is not on the NYPD's banned establishments list. He also declined to comment on the credibility of DiLeonardo and Rotondo's allegations.

'We've reviewed the list since then and the location is not on our list of corruption-prone locations,' he said.

While standing outside Russo's Tivoli Room near the Tuscan murals last week, Sergeants Benevolent Association spokesman Robert Mladinich said: 'We didn't know this. It's something we'll certainly look into. Maybe that will effect our decision in the future.'

Standing one floor above the Florentine Room, Ognibene, of Queens, who has said he will run against Bloomberg in the GOP primary, seemed perplexed by the questions of mob ties. 'Does the Gambino family exist anymore?' he asked.

Frank Russo declined to comment. A woman who answered the phone at Russo's explained, 'He usually doesn't have anything to say about any of that.'

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Posted by butterfly91804

didn't one of the boys in Growing up Gotti have his graduation party there?

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One of them actually graduated? I thought all of the gel leaked into his head.