 Welcome into another edition of the original gangsters podcast. This is another solo quick hitter. I'm Scott Bernstein, your host, Jimmy Bucciolato will be back for the full length episode later this week. But right now I want to do a breakdown of some headline-grabbing news out of New York City this past week and then tied into the evergreen mob subject of John Gotti and the Campino Crime Band. But let's start with the story of the Salonardi bloodline in the New York Mafia. So this past week, a 31-year-old Vincent Salonardi Jr., aka Vinnie Mercedes, was indicted by the feds along with three co-conspirators. They were charged, I believe under the Hobbs Act, connected to a November 2021 armed robbery of a pretty prominent restaurant owner, a place called Bacci, I believe, and there's original ones in Bay Ridge, and the one that this assault and robbery took place at is in Staten Island, Dongan Hills, and Vinnie Mercedes, you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He's got a father and a grandfather that come from the life that have a mob pedigree or he has a mob pedigree that goes back to his father who was with the Casey, who turned government and format in the 2000s, and then his grandfather is an interesting figure also that dates all the way back to the late 60s, early 70s, Peter Salonardi, who they called Sonny Boy. And both Sonny Boy and Vinnie Baldi have kind of tangential ties into the John Gotti regime and people that were linked to him, and I'm going to kind of color up that story after I talk about Vinnie Mercedes, who's allegedly an associate of the Colombo crime family, and is in Rikers Island right now serving a 10-month sentence for a domestic abuse or domestic assault, and he was just jammed up in this Fed case that goes back almost two years to this armed robbery and Vinnie Mercedes, you know, cased the joint, knew the guy, this Italian restaurant owner, carried about $10,000 in cash with him out of the restaurant to his car and then to his house most nights, and they planned to get him when he was coming to his car in the parking lot with a leather bag with 10k in it, and Vinnie Mercedes recruited some people, a guy he met I think at his gym who then recruited some other people, these guys were at least two of them, including Vinnie Mercedes was or is alleged to be possibly involved in narcotics trafficking that hasn't been proven but alleged, and Vinnie Mercedes sets it up, plans it out, but lets these three other people actually do the attack, and the restaurant owner was carrying and the mob thugs got away with the 10,000 in the leather bag, but the restaurant owner got off a shot, you know, with his weapon and shot one of the salants who ended up crashing his car and having to go to the hospital which kind of blew this whole thing open, but according to the indictment Vinnie Mercedes ended up with the 10k, had it got passed off to him by the guy that got shot at the Staten Island Mall and then they went their separate ways and the guy that got shot ended up passing out while he was driving, and so not only does he have this arm robbery federal case a couple days after that indictment dropped, the feds filed a obstruction or made allegations of an obstruction of justice charge when it came out that Vinnie Mercedes after he was visited by the FBI back last month in Rikers Island before the case came down, he jumped on the phone right after these these two feds left the facility and in code was talking to another Columbia Colombo associate telling him to get word to his superiors of what had happened, we don't know who those superiors are, but that's kind of where we stand with Vinnie Mercedes right now, again he's a young guy, he's got a history of domestic disturbances, there was something back when he was 1920 and then there's just a more recent thing in the past year to year to 18 months, but again he has a quite the lineage, so his dad was Vincent Salomardi Sr. who went by the nickname Vinnie Baldi, I'm told that Vinnie Mercedes sometimes goes by little Vinnie Baldi or even Vinnie Baldi or little Baldi, Junior Baldi, and that the Mercedes nickname might be a little bit media created or police created, but I'm gonna start with the story of his grandfather and then I'm gonna tell you the story of his father and then we'll you know we'll see what happens from there, but his grandpa was a Peter Sonny Boy Salomardi who was kind of like a hired gun, worked for multiple families, Lucchese's Gambino's, Bonanno's, I think he was officially on record with Bonanno's and in 1972 the Gambino crime family, John Gotti's mentor Neil De La Croche who is one of the most venerable, powerful, beloved, respected you know mafia figures in American history in the last three quarters of a century and he ran his operations out of the Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street in Little Italy for 40 years until he died and then it was taken over by his protege John Gotti and in 1972 in the summer of 1972 August the first week of August 1972 a Lucchese drug lieutenant named Carlo Lombardi who was linked pretty heavily into the French connection heroin empire had a beef with these two brothers the Consolvo brothers Frank and Carmine Consolvo who were close to Mr. Neil and I believe Frank Consolvo was De La Croche's driver and Lombardi had this I think it was a beef over a drug rip-off and August 1st 1972 Lombardi comes blasting into the Ravenite and gives off four or five shots with a pistol the guy you know doesn't hit his targets but he's aiming at the Consolvo's and aiming at Neil De La Croche who's like again it's like shooting at God the guys in the club jump him they're beating him severely it looks like they might have beat him to death before just a beat cop interrupts the altercation and gets him to a hospital where he's stitched up and then checks himself out of the hospital seven days later Carlo Lombardi gets a machine gun and goes back into the Ravenite and starts popping off more shots aiming again at Mr. Neil and the Consolvo's his gun jams somehow he flees before before he's apprehended and at that point you know it's like if you live another week you're the luckiest man in the world and he lived about 24 hours and that's where Sonny Boy Salonardi comes in so the Gambino's give the contract to the Lucchesis and the Bananos and Sonny Boy Salonardi and his one of his running buddies a guy by the name Nikki Mussolino who went by Nikki the Nut Salonardi knows Carlo Lombardi and kind of rocks him to sleep pretends like he's gonna help him and take him to a safe house up in the Catskills this is less than 24 hours after the second attack and so Sonny Boy and Nikki the Nut come and pick up Lombardi and Lombardi's girlfriend a woman named Elizabeth Braces I believe at a hotel in Seacock is New Jersey and they promised they're gonna drive him up to a safe house in around Monticello and when they get up near Monticello Nikki the Nut is that you know in the driver's seat and Sonny Boy Salonardi is in the passenger seat up front and he turns around and unloads his his pistol into both Carlo Lombardi and Carlo Lombardi's girlfriend they dump the bodies in a ditch in Sullivan County and take off unfortunately for them but fortunately for Miss Braces she survives the attack and ends up testifying against Mussolino in court he gets 30 years but it's it's a cautionary tale you know you don't you don't come guns blazing into a hornet snats like that you know a mob hotbed of all mob hotbeds and do it twice and things that you're gonna walk away with your life and Carlo Lombardi you know paid the ultimate price Sonny Boy Salonardi son Vinnie Baldy Salonardi senior ends up with the Luccheses gets inducted according to court records in 1998 it's placed with Johnny Cyburns who is Johnny Sorrella long-time Lucchesi veteran mafia figure in that family it's been a skipper for decades and Salonardi senior Vinnie Baldy makes you know pretty good reputation for himself as a collector thief extortionist drug trafficker and what ends up being his downfall is another tie to the to the Gotti regime so at the end of you know Gotti's the rain is over with he's in prison locked up dying of cancer convicted on a multiple murder counts he had a kind of a sir a quasi surrogate son a Jewish guy named Lewis Caseman who was unofficial kind of financial counselor for for Gotti at the apex of his mob tenure at the top of a Gambino crime family spent a lot of time with the Gotti family leveraged the name and the currency of being associated and in such close proximity to Gotti all around you know all around New York all around the country and in 2000 Caseman partners with the sons of a Lucchesi associate named Philly Basile who was connected into that Goodfellas crew the movie that you know the crew you saw in the movie Henry Hale Jimmy the gent to gun Tommy that was Philly Basile's crew Philly Basile had two sons Roger and Frank Basile and they partner with Lewis Caseman in a high end surf and turf restaurant a seafood restaurant called Hudson and McCoy fish house in Long Island in Freeport right off right off the water and it's immediately very successful very popular but within a year they're bleeding money because Caseman is is stealing skimming from the till and the Basile's go run to their father's associates their their dad had passed away in 1996 but they reach out to a former acting boss in the Lucchesis Joe DeFede little Joe and and DeFede sends Johnny Cyburns and Vinnie Baldy to troubleshoot the situation they troubleshoot it by muscling Caseman out of the business Caseman doesn't have Gotti to run to anymore isn't protected by him Caseman ends up flipping eventually himself but it didn't really alleviate the extortion problem for the Basile brothers they just exchanged one extortionist for another and Vinnie Baldy and Johnny Cyburns start bleeding the bleeding the place dry themselves starting in the summer of 2001 they're taking about ten thousand dollars a night they're pocketing it and little do they know in early 2002 little Joe DeFede comes out of prison and he knows that he is in the doghouse with the Casey bosses suspected of skimming himself in other rackets before he'd gone to jail when he was the acting boss and not properly filtering the cash to other other higher ups in the family and unprompted he goes runs at the FBI and helps them make a case cases against Vinnie Baldy and and Johnny Cyburns and about another close to two dozen who case these case drops in December of 2002 couple years into the case Vinnie Baldy flips enters witness protection but is kicked out of witness protection like two years later because he has his girlfriend on the outside collecting debts for him has to do another six years came out about a decade ago and not really sure where Vinnie Baldy is but we definitely know where his son is his sons in Rikers Island right now finishing up a domestic abuse case but is about to be fighting or is fighting a federal Hobbs act armed robbery case so with the combos so we'll keep you updated here at the OG for Benny behind the glass and for Jimmy who will be back in the full length episode OG pod we're out