A chilling FBI wiretap captured the second a large Bonanno trooper nicknamed “The Maniac” threatened to beat up a mobster if he betrayed him to the feds.
“I’ll beat you up, are you going to inform me?” wiseguy John Ragano yelled at mob informant Vincent Matrino, in keeping with the tape performed for jurors in Brooklyn federal courtroom on Wednesday. “You bloody scumbag. I am going to see you after I get out.”
The July 2023 tape was made simply 5 days earlier than Ragano was despatched to jail for racketeering — and after the huge hood compelled Martino to strip bare to show he wasn’t carrying a wire.
The search failed to show up the microphone, which was connected to Martino’s clothes, prosecutors mentioned.
Martino, a mob affiliate who made $275,000 within the mob gap, is without doubt one of the key witnesses at Ragano’s new federal racketeering trialwitness tampering and witness tampering expenses.
In his second day on the stand, Marino testified that whereas he was being abused by Ragano whereas he was bare, two different thugs stood behind him brandishing an iron and a crowbar.
“I used to be anxious, scared,” Martineau instructed jurors. “I knew that on the finish of the day, someplace down the road, two weeks, two years, 5 years … anyone was going to come back and get that cash.”
Martino begins cooperating with the feds after being deeply in debt to the mob.
He first started taking mob cash after his development firm failed within the midst of the COVID pandemic, taking out $125,000 in loans from the Columbus crime household, prosecutors mentioned.
After falling behind, Martino approaches the Bonanno household for one more $150,000 in unlawful loans—and is ultimately referred to as in by Ragano to repay the debt.
Through the July 5, 2023, assembly behind A&G Auto Dismantlers in Ridgewood, Martino tried to push Ragano away, accusing him of being a rat, in keeping with the wiretap.
“I’ve obtained to get out of this factor,” Martino mentioned. “You the hell snitching on me bro?”
“Get out of right here,” Ragano shot. “Are you getting silly for me?
“I do not need to be left behind as a result of I’ll jail,” he mentioned. “You actually do not know me. I do not need to be harsh. I am not making an attempt to be robust. Once I come out, you place an af–king wire on me, I am going to come out and present you what sort of man I’m.
Ragano’s trial continued Wednesday.
